Choosing My Own Essay Samples

Choosing My Own Essay SamplesWhen choosing my own essay samples, I was always careful to make sure that they were about things that I enjoyed, and that I could relate to. I didn't want to be stuck in a room full of essays about how I hate beach bums and spoiled brats. But what if I had been told that the samples had all been selected to be about what I didn't like, and how I hated them? What would I have done then?I don't remember where I read this, but it certainly made sense. Choosing your own essay samples is hard, so don't be too hard on yourself if you get picked for one you don't like. Sometimes, it's really just a matter of picking a sample that matches your personality better than another, and how you portray yourself.Choosing my own essay samples for my kids is easy: it's a competition. They start writing essays about things that they are passionate about, and what makes them happy. Of course, our sixth graders are constantly being told that they are 'dumb'stupid,' so we jus t tell them that they are right all the time, and tell them that they can do no wrong.Our seventh graders are a little bit self-aware of their own thoughts, and how they feel about what they write. They are making a statement about themselves, so when they are writing an essay, they make sure that they are honest and truthful, and true to themselves. I also let them know that you are right if you disagree with them.College essays are almost entirely about students' opinions and feelings. These opinions and feelings don't matter as much as the data behind them. If the data is right, they are right. If the data is wrong, they are wrong.Choosing my own essay samples is harder because the data comes with biases. You have to try to remove these biases. What about the person who got picked for an essay that he or she hates? What if the student has some sort of learning disability? Do they get to talk about how they hate writing, or the bias they must have against what they are writing?Cho osing my own writing samples is very hard. It's hard because there are so many of them out there, and some of them have been biased toward what you think. You have to have more integrity and honesty about what you really want, and how you feel. Be realistic about what you really want, and what you think that others want you to write about.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Essay Example

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Paper â€Å"In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was ‘Arrrgh! ’†. These famous lines taken from Piraticus 13:7 are the first words you will see in the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Many do not know what exactly Pastafarianism is, and so I am here to spread the Word! Pastafarians stand for all that is good, and are against all that is bad. What more could someone ask for? The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, while having existed in secrecy for millions of years only recently came into the mainstream in May of 2005. But what do they stand for, and what exactly are their beliefs? In May of 2005, an open letter to the Kansas School Board from concerned citizen Bobby Henderson sparked the mass intro of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster into our society. Some claimed that the church is purely a thought experiment, satire, illustrating that Intelligent Design is not science, but rather a pseudoscience manufactured by Christians to push Creationism into public schools. But Bobby knew better, and wrote his letter to express his concern. In the words of Bobby Henderson himself, â€Å"With millions, if not thousands, of devout worshippers, the Church of the FSM is widely considered a legitimate religion, even by its opponents – mostly fundamentalist Christians, who have accepted that our God has larger balls than theirs. † A lot of people can’t bring themselves to understand this religion. Before I delve farther into what exactly this religion is, I would like to share what they consider the basic beliefs that they all share. By design, the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that there is no dogma allowed. We will write a custom essay sample on The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer There are absolutely no strict rules and regulations, there are no written rituals and prayers that must be abided by, and every single member gets a say in what the Church is and what it becomes. Due to this, the religion is actually quite difficult to clearly define what the religion is. According to them, they have a set of general beliefs that are as follows. First, they believe that pirates, the original pastafarians, were simply peaceful explorers and that due to Christian misinformation, they received an outlook of outcast criminals. To them, this is completely untrue. Next, they are extremely fond of beer and other alcoholic beverages. To them, this is basically the equivalent of holy water. Every single Friday is a religious holiday and is to be treated as such. Another belief is that they should never take themselves too seriously. This religion wasn’t founded by a group of â€Å"uptight† individuals. Finally, they embrace contradictions. These aforementioned aspects are considered the core beliefs of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The central belief is that an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the  universe  after drinking heavily. According to these beliefs, the Monsters intoxication was the cause for a flawed  Earth. Furthermore, according to Pastafarianism, all evidence for evolution was planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster in an effort to test Pastafarians faith—parodying certain  biblical literalists. When scientific measurements such as  radiocarbon dating  are taken, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. The Pastafarian conception of  Heaven  includes a  beer  volcano and a  stripper  factory. The Pastafarian  Hell  is similar, except that the beer is stale and the strippers have  sexually transmitted diseases. According to Pastafarian beliefs,  pirates  are absolute divine beings and the original Pastafarians. Furthermore, Pastafarians believe that pirates image as thieves and outcasts is misinformation spread by Christian theologians in the  Middle Ages  and by  Hare Krishna’s. Instead, Pastafarians believe that they were peace-loving explorers and spreaders of good will who distributed candy to small children, adding that modern pirates are in no way similar to the fun-loving buccaneers from history. In addition, Pastafarians believe that ghost pirates are responsible for all of the mysteriously lost ships and planes of the  Bermuda Triangle. Pastafarians celebrate  International Talk like a Pirate Day on September 19th. The inclusion of pirates in Pastafarianism was part of Hendersons original letter to the Kansas State Board of Education, in an effort to illustrate that†correlation does not imply causation†. Henderson presented the argument that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters  are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of pirates since the 1800s.   A chart accompanying the letter shows that as the number of pirates decreased, global temperatures increased. This parodies the suggestion from some religious groups that the high numbers of disasters, famines and wars in the world is due to the lack of respect and worship towards their deity. In 2008, Henderson interpreted the growing pirate activities at the  Gulf of Ade n  as additional support, pointing out that  Somalia  has the highest number of pirates and  the lowest  carbon emissions  of any country. There are 7 occurrences of celebration within the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The first is Pastover, in which pastafarians around the world are encouraged to eat copious amounts of pasta which is cooked â€Å"in his image† by family members dressed as pirates. A common practice on this day is the passing of the eye patch, in which each family member takes turn wearing the eye patch and explains why he/she is happy to have been â€Å"touched by his noodly appendages†. Next is Ramendan, in which pastafarians are encouraged to eat only ramen noodles and remember their times of eating quality pasta. Then there’s Halloween, a time of remembrance of when Pirates walked the earth freely. A little known fact is that pirates were well known for passing out candy on this day but the practice dwindled as they became more and more persecuted. Next, on September 19th, is International Talk like a Pirate Day, in which pastafarians everywhere are encouraged to return to their pirate ancestor’s native tongue. Another important holiday is Friday. Every Friday, to be exact, is a holiday to the Pastafarians. On this day, they are to pay homage to their beer volcanoes and stripper factories. Finally is Holiday, which basically covers all the commercial holidays. To be a world religion, there are seven things that generally must be met. The first is the experiential aspect in which you look at what that started it all. Although the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has existed for â€Å"millions, if not thousands† of years, the main point that brought it into the mainstream was Bobby Henderson’s letter to the Kansas School Board expressing his concern about their denial of his alternative theory. From that point on, Pastafarianism exploded into the mainstream, and since then it has only expanded and grown. In fact, according to them, you don’t even have to actually believe in the FSM to be a member. In their own words, â€Å"For the same reason that many in other religions don’t literally believe their scripture, you can be a Pastafarian without being a True Believer of our scripture. In other words, do you know Christians who don’t take the Bible literally – but who consider themselves True Christians, nonetheless? So do I. In fact, True Belief is not often a requirement of religion. Most religions are comprised of a group of people with similar – but not exact – world views. Pastafarianism is no different in that regard. † Next is the aspect involving myth. Here, we examine the storied that aren’t necessarily true scientifically, but convey important truths about life. One example of this is the FSM story of creationism. The story begins with the creation of the universe by an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster. On the first day, the Flying Spaghetti Monster separated the water from the heavens; on the second, because He could not tread water for long and had grown tired of flying, He created the land—complemented by a beer volcano. Satisfied, the Flying Spaghetti Monster overindulged in beer from the beer volcano and woke up hung over. Between drunken nights and clumsy afternoons, the Flying Spaghetti Monster produced seas and land for a second time, accidentally, because he forgot that he created it the day before along with Heaven and a midget, which he named Man. Man and an equally short woman lived happily in the Olive Garden of Eden for some time until the Flying Spaghetti Monster caused a global flood in a cooking accident. This gives us a clear and understandable way to interpret how something as large as the Earth was made. Next is Doctrinal, which involve creeds, gospels, and things of that nature. One way in which the Church of the FSM meets this standard is in its adaptation of the 10 commandments. This gives the pastafarians a clear list of things to do in order to get into Heaven. The story goes that Captain Mosey ascended Mount Salsa and received 10 pieces of advice from the Flying Spaghetti Monster. These pieces of advice are contained in the book known as â€Å"The Eight ‘I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts. † The reason there are only eight is due to the fact that on the way back down from Mount Salsa, Captain Mosey ropped two of them. This event partly accounts for Pastafarians flimsy moral standards. The Flying Spaghetti Monsters commandments address worship of Him, the treatment of people of other faiths, sexual conduct, and nutrition. The fourth aspect is ethical. In this, we examine what the religion says is good or bad. Here, we can again look at the wonderful story of Captain Mosey. Again referring to the â€Å"Eight I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts†, we can get a better picture of their moral code. The first says that they are not to â€Å"act like sanctimonious holier-than-thou people when talking about His Holy Goodness. He goes on to say that if someone doesn’t believe in Him, it is okay. The second says not to use His Noodly Goodness as a means to oppress others. In His words, â€Å"Purity is for drinking water, not people†. Third, he talks about not judging people for the way they look, talk, dress, or choose to live their life. If they want to engage in homosexual relations, let them. â€Å"One is not better than the other, unless were talking about fashion and Im sorry, but I gave that to women and some guys who know the difference between teal and fuchsia. I am not going to go over all eight of them in this paper, but the point is that they do indeed have a set of commandments much like another well-known religion. Next is ritual, in which we look at the varying rituals involved in the Church of the FSM. Actually, there are no mandatory religions involved in the Church of the FSM. However, there are rituals that are encouraged to be practiced during events such as holidays. One o f which I mentioned earlier, in which the passing of the eye patch takes place. Here, each member of the family takes turns wearing the holy eye patch and sharing why he or she is blessed to have been touched by His Noodly Appendages. The fifth aspect is the social aspect. Here, we look at the communities involved within the religion. The Church of the FSM does not have a set, established church anywhere. Instead, they believe that the Earth is their â€Å"church† and that wherever they happen to meet is okay with them, as many of them are â€Å"too lazy to be bothered to get up at seven in the morning and go to some building to be told what to believe†. They do however hold things uch as parades in order to unite together as â€Å"one under His Noodly Appendages†. Finally, there is the material aspect. In the Church of the FSM, one of the Eight I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts is that they are not to spend billions of dollars erecting statues, cathedrals, and other items of worship when the money could go to â€Å"stopping world hunger, healing the sick, helping the homeless, and lowering the cost of cable. † However, there are many pieces of art created by a slew of talented ten year olds that serve to allow His Noodly Appendages to continue to touch those around us for millions of years to come. As we can see, this religion has actually had a huge impact on our society since it went mainstream in 2005. People all over the world are changing to better serve his Holy Goodness and help those around them. If you look at the Church as a whole, not one death has occurred due to it, and â€Å"certainly no wars and slaughters were caused by it, much like another religion†. The FSM has allowed us to take a step back and look at what we believe in, and determine what actually makes sense. By creating a religion completely based off of one guy’s imagination and determination for people to open their eyes and look at what they preach, the Church of the FSM has helped many to become better people, and it will continue to do so throughout the years as more and more people become aware of his Noodly Goodness. Works Cited 1. www. venganza. org. 2. The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Author: Bobby Henderson Published: 2005. 3. http://politics. gather. com/viewArticle. action? articleId=281474976877085 4. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/The_Gospel_of_the_Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pastafarian_Creation_Myth

How To Start A Niche Blog (And Why You Should)

How To Start A Niche Blog (And Why You Should) You can divide all blogs into two categories: lifestyle blogs and niche blogs. These categories represent two conscious decisions that bloggers can make: Im going to write about everything, or Im going to write about one thing.   Bloggers have 2 choices: Write about everything, or write about one thing. #NicheBloggingNiche blogs are when you write about one thing, and one thing only. They are a blog with a one-track mind, having one purpose, one goal. Why in the world would you ever consider something as unfun as a niche blog?  Because niche blogging is where real traction and traffic happen for a blog. Why You Should Start A Niche Blog As a blog reader I like variety, but when it comes time to save a blogs RSS feed in Feedly for reading and sharing later, I much prefer niche blogs. Niche blogs save me time.  They fit into a specific category and I know that when I want to read on a certain topic, the posts will stay true to the category. I will find content on the topic Im looking for and nothing else. For lifestyle blogs, I end up dumping them into a category I call Random Interesting (yes, I really call it that) and I only venture in there when I have time to kill. Its not that I dont enjoy reading those blogs (I actually do), but when I am pressed for time I dont always have the option to sift through content to find something that might be useful in the moment. I turn to categories that I know will give me what Im looking for. In other words, when it comes time to share content, niche blogs are the workhorse readers turn to. Variety, within boundaries, works. Variety, without boundaries, can be a mess. #NicheBloggingThats great that niche blogs give me, the content curator, an easier day. But what benefits do you, the blogger, get from a niche blog? 1. Niche Blogs Keep You On Track Focus is hard enough when you blog. This is especially true on days when you dont have ideas and are tempted to write about your favorite sports team just this one time. When you have a defined niche, its pretty easy to say no, the NFL doesnt have anything to do with my pastry blog. By knowing the specific topic you are writing about, you actually have more tools available to help get you out of an idea rut. Techniques to break writers block, like brainstorming or a headline storm, are easier when you have boundaries that define where you should operate. Lets consider an example of how the two compare. I have a lifestyle blog and I cant think of anything to write about. Has anything interesting happened to me lately? Have I observed anything interesting about life in general I think people might like to hear about? Have I read anything lately that caught my attention that I could write about for my readers? I have a niche blog about shoes, and I cant think of anything to write about. I can go to my RSS reader and get ideas on my niche topic that are trending right now. I can see which of my old posts are most popular and repurpose them. I can do Google keyword research on shoe-related phrases. I can set up a Google Alert on different shoe-related topics. Neither the lifestyle blog or niche blog is better, but a niche blog has more concrete methods of finding ideas because the topic is restricted. Narrow boundaries keep you from weaving all over the place. Niche blogs make idea and headline generation easier. Boundaries are good.2. Niche Blogs Give You A Reliable Audience I have several personal blogs; a few are niche and a few are without boundaries whatsoever. My main blog is mainly personal, and Ill write on any topic that strikes my fancy. My core readers are those who connect with my personality and as an individual, and not with a specific topic. While that is valid, it isnt a reliable audience that you can build a huge email list or serious traffic on (unless youre already famous). The average blogger isnt generally going to be a mini-star with a huge following that clings to them no matter what they write. A great example is a viral blog post I had recently. The topic of the post was on food and health, and I picked up a lot of email subscribers who were interested in that topic. The next weeks email came out and most of those subscribers went away. Why? Because they thought I was a food blog, and thats what they wanted. A niche blog will give you an audience that you understand, and that understands you. They are less prone to churn. Niche blogs give you an audience that you understand, and that understands you.3. Niche Blogs Make It Easier To Monetize Your Blog Perhaps youve decided youll use advertising on your blog to earn income. Once again, niche blogs for the win. If youre blog is about everything, what ads will you sell? Itll be hit and miss to guess what ads will actually be the most successful. You dont know which topic makes your audience show up and read and therefore, you dont know which ads will interest them. Its also a hard sell to advertisers. They want to know what your blog is about. How do you sell an ad when your blog is about me? The same can be said for ebooks, training, and other items that people use to make money through a blog. How will you choose a topic for an ebook, or training, and know that your readers will buy it, if youre not writing a niche blog? You have no idea what theyd spend money on or like to learn. All you know is that they are willing to come to your blog to hear your random thoughts on all kinds of topics for free. 4. Niche Blogs Expand Your Own Knowledge Blogs that arent niche blogs dont generally do in-depth coverage on a particular topic. Their lifeblood is the variety, and sometimes topic coverage is a bit like skipping stones. Each post glances at the surface of the topic and then moves on to the next topic. Niche blogs, however, encourage in-depth coverage of topics. They have to. Youre only writing about one specific topic and youll naturally dig in deeper and cover details as much as you can because there isnt another topic to bounce on to. For example, if you have a food blog, you wouldnt write just one blog post about whether you should use cold or room temp butter for making a cake and call it done, never to revisit butter temperature again. Instead, you might do a series on how to properly use butter, and that might lead you to do features on more individual ingredients and how they affect your baking. With niche blogs, you dont have to come up with 1000 new ideas. You can start with three and approach them from every angle possible before moving on. A niche blog allows you to do that, but on a general lifestyle blog, youre just going to be seen as strangely obsessive about butter. You dont need 1000 new ideas on a #NicheBlog. A few, from all angles, will do.How To Start A Niche Blog The difference between starting a niche blog and any other blog isnt particularly magical or unusual. It involves research and planning before you jump in and start writing. It involves more than just the decision to start a blog. It requires you to decide to start a blog about ___.  If youre looking for your niche blog to bring in money, youll want to be even more conscientious in your selection of a niche topic. 1. Know Your Passion If you hate vegetables, deciding to write a niche blog about vegetables is a terrible idea. Even if you like vegetables well enough, it still might not be enough. Remember, you are going to be writing heavily about a very focused topic. Thats going to be difficult enough. At least make it easy on yourself and have a serious passionate and interest in your niche. Otherwise, its going to be a very short-lived blog. 2. Decide On Short Or Long Term Trend niche blogs wont last, but they can be profitable for a while. For example, your niche blog might capitalize on a TV show or movie. Once the show is no longer on the air, or the movie buzz has faded, your blog wont be the traffic horse it once was. But that doesnt mean you shouldnt do it. As long as you know, going in, that youre going to be in a bit of a pressure cooker to build traffic quickly, and are ready to capitalize on absolutely every last drop of it before it fades, go ahead. Its the way your entire blog exists by capitalizing on a trend. 3. Decide If And How Youll Monetize Your Site Perhaps youre writing your niche blog for the absolute love of the topic and dont care about bringing in money. Fair enough.  Most people create a niche blog in the hopes of bringing in money, because niche blogs are uniquely able to handle advertising and affiliate marketing very well. Lets say you do want to use affiliate marketing. You will need to pick a niche topic where good affiliate marketing programs and products are available, and youll get paid a decent commission. Youll need to research available affiliate programs and find a reputable one that fits what you need best. Or maybe you want to use advertising. Again, youll need a blog whose topic attracts a specific audience that has advertisers eager to market to them. And, youll need to build up traffic to a certain level before some advertising programs will even consider your blog. Remember to comply with the FTC and disclose on your blog if you decide to use affiliate marketing or paid reviews. Niche blogs are uniquely set up to bring in advertising and affiliate marketing money.4. Find Your Keyword Niche Youve decided youll write about coffee for your niche blog. But coffee is still pretty broad–are you talking about growing coffee? roasting coffee? brewing coffee? fair trade coffee? coffee culture? buying coffee? cooking with coffee? You need to find specific keywords if you want your niche blog to bring in money and traffic. Googles Keyword Planner is the most popular tool, and even though there is no shortage of blog posts telling you how to find the best keywords, you might consider Googles own instructions  on using Keyword Planner, too. Which site will be easier to target with affiliate marketing, advertising, and keywords: A niche blog about photography, or a niche blog about Nikon cameras? Sometimes the extreme niche blog is the way to go when you are looking to monetize your site and find precise keywords that do the heavy lifting. When it comes to traffic and monetizing your blog, the more focused your audience is, the better. 5. Tighten Up Your Current Blog Maybe your current blog went off track and became a blog about everything. How do you turn your blog into a niche blog? Look at your categories. Youll notice that a blog off track often has category and tag bloat. Which category do you seem to write in the most? Thats a good hint at where your passion and interest for blogging lies. Look at your stats. Which of your posts tend to get the most traffic? This is an indicator of why people come to your blog, and it is also an indicator of a post that has done well in search. Dissect the post. Whats the topic? How did you write it? What brings the search engines? Make more posts like this on the most popular topic. Do some pruning. You might consider removing posts that are completely off-topic. If you absolutely must write on more than one topic, why not start a personal blog elsewhere and rehab your current blog into a niche blog? If your blog has been around a while, build on that traffic and following while you regain focus as a niche. Resist that spontaneous post. If you catch yourself feeling like you just have to post a photo and story about your dog and the cute thing he did today, stop. Dont put it on your blog. That is more appropriate for social media, or your personal lifestyle blog. Again, if you must have this outlet, create a personal blog to do it on. Keep your niche blog purely on topic, always. Dont give up on a wayward blog. Even if you havent stayed on topic over the years, its not too late to start. Decide today that you will have a niche blog, and get that mindset in place.

Marketing channel article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Marketing channel article - Essay Example The competition is reacting accordingly in order to ensure Amazon does not steal market share away from them. â€Å"Companies like Walmart, Best Buy and Toys â€Å"R† Us have already announced that they will not be undersold and will match any competitors’ prices in a printed flyer or website† (Loeb). The use of a matching pricing strategy can help retailers retain market share, but it does so at the expense of lowering profitability. The pricing strategies that are being used by major retailers are benefiting the customers who are going to be able to obtain bargain prices on many products. Best Buy plans to match competitors prices as well, but this firm believes that they have a competitive advantage over Amazon because they are able to physically show its customers the products they want to buy in their showrooms, while at the same time offering great prices though its website. For other retailers such as Toys R Us Christmas season is more important to them since most of their yearly sales are dependent on the arrival of Santa Claus on Christmas. A matching pricing strategy was an obvious move for them due to their dependency on Christmas sales. Amazon is leading the pack this Christmas season by offering daily sales on a high variety of items. The pricing strategy of Amazon intends to increase its market share as much as possible. It all starts on Black Friday for Amazon with deals on popular items such as sm artphones, diamond rings, and Wrangler jeans. After Black Friday the company intends on adding deals each day on different items in order to motivate buyers to make purchases. Last year Amazon lead the industry with 2,840 prices changes on Black Friday. Most of the prices changes were down, but some went up in order to offset the loss of profitability of reducing prices. This article showed that pricing is a critical factor that affects the buying behavior of consumers. Companies competing for market shares

Final Exam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 10

Final Exam - Essay Example The Peloponnesian War involved the battle pitting the Athenians and the Peloponnesian League under the guidance of Sparta. As a result two immediate long term effects occurred and, hence, affected both sides. For instance, it caused the breakdown of peace meaning Athens violated the Peace of Nicias treaty signed in 421 BC. Another effect included the introduction of the Ionian and Decelean Wars. These two wars occasioned a devastating phase of bloodshed as both sides struggled to gain victory for the acquisition of empires. Subsequently, three long term effects emerged from the Peloponnesian War such as the explosion of the Archidamian War (Tritle 100). It is war that was led by Spartan forces under king Archidamus II. Second effect entailed the contravention of the Peace of Nicias treaty that was meant to stop the war between Spartan and Athenian forces. Third effect is the Sicilian Expedition that was heralded by the Athenians in order to defeat their rivals. The Spartans prevailed over the Athenians because of their prolonged siege that induced diseases and starvation in the Athenian population. The Spartans later showed clemency to the Athenians by refusing to enslave them. It is crucial to highlight that the aftermath of the war played a major role in changing the Greek civilization. The tyrants that ruled Greece suspended democracy. In this sense, it became a reactionary regime that would eliminate the oligarchs and create the capacity for true democracy. During the Peloponnesian War, Pericles demonstrated two political strengths worth noting because they contributed to the favorable outcome witnessed in the duel. First, he was a charismatic speaker who applied both rhetoric and flowery language in persuading the masses. As the leader of Athens, therefore, he integrated colorful speech with the need for his people to exact revenge against the

Determination of Vitamin C in Tablets

Determination of Vitamin C in Tablets INTRODUCTION Nowadays, health has become the most important property of humans life. Commonly, diets with high contents of fruits are protective against several human diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and even cancer. Therefore, people are putting more and more attention on antioxidant substances such as vitamin C which is also known as ascorbic acid or more specifically L-ascorbic acid. Vitamin C is probably one of the most highly well known. Furthermore, people have become more aware to the importance of vitamin C. Hence, this causes the global market flooded with vitamin C fortified foods (Arya, Mahajan and Jain, 2000). The term of vitamin C is used as generic term for all compounds exhibiting qualitatively the biological activity of ascorbic acid. The molecular structure of vitamin C is C6H8O6 and the molecular weight is 176.1 (Ball, 2006). Vitamin C is highly polar and readily soluble in aqueous solution and insoluble in less nonpolar solvents (Fennema, 1996). It is an acidic compound due to the facile ionization of hydroxyl group on carbon 3 (pK1 = 4.17) while the hydroxyl group on carbon 2 is much more resistant to ionization (pK2 = 11.79). The structure of L-ascorbic acid is shown in Figure 1 (Ball, 2006). Ball (2006) also stated that ascorbic acid is easily and reversibly oxidized to dehydroascorbic acid, forming the ascorbyl radical anion which is also known as semidehydoascorbate as an intermediate as shown in Figure 2. Dehydoascorbic acid possesses full vitamin C activity because it is readily reduced to ascorbic acid in the animal body. However, dehydoascorbic acid is not an acid in the chemical sense, as it does not have the dissociable protons that ascorbic acid has at carbon 2 and carbon 3 positions. One of the most important properties of vitamin C is that it is an antioxidant. Nevertheless, it has a wide range of antioxidant properties outside the body and can quench most biologically active radicals. It scavenges superoxide, nitroxide, hydroxide, hydrogen peroxide and will reduce vitamin E (Hickey and Roberts, 2004). It is also found to be a strong antioxidant as it helps to neutralize harmful free radicals (Izuagie and Izuagie, 2007). Vitamin C is an almost odorless white or pale yellow crystalline powder with a pleasant sharp taste and melting point of about 190Â °C. It is not a carboxylic acid but a lactone and ease of oxidation to the presence of an enediol grouping (Izuagie and Izuagie, 2007). Vitamin C is highly susceptible to oxidation, especially when catalyzed by metal ions such as copper(II) ion and iron(III) ion. The functions and activities of vitamin C are based on its properties as a reversible biological reductant (Hickey and Roberts, 2004). Vitamin C participates for the growth and repair of tissues in all parts of the body (Kleszczewski and Kleszczewska, 2002). Vitamin C is a natural antioxidant that mostly found in fruits and vegetables. The main sources of vitamin C are citrus fruits, strawberries, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, and spinach. Vitamin C plays crucial roles in electron transport, hydroxylation reactions and oxidative catabolism of aromatic compounds in animal metabolism (Gazdik et al, 2008). Vitamin C can help to prevent and treat common cold, mental illness, infertility, scurvy, cancer and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). It is reported to lower cancer risk and also said to have important interactions with other vitamins. For example, excessive intake of vitamin A is less toxic to the body when vitamin C is readily available (Izuagie and Izuagie, 2007). Due to the great importance of vitamin C in human beings, the quantitative analysis of vitamin C has gained increased significance in several areas of analytical chemistry such as pharmaceutical and food applications (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). Vitamin C is also used as an index of the nutrient quality for fruit and vegetable products. This is because it is much more sensitive to various modes of degradation in food processing and subsequent storage (Ozkan, Kirca and Cemero, 2004). It is well known that vitamin C is easily oxidized to dehydroascorbic acid in alkaline solutions, while it is relatively stable in acidic solution. Vitamin C of fruit juices is readily oxidized and lost during staying of the juices (Kabasakalis, Siopidou and Moshatou, 2000). In the food industry, vitamin C is used as food additive (Mai and Mohammed, 2004). It preserves and protects food from any colour changes and act as an important component of our nutrition as well. Vitamin C helps to prevent the degradation of soft drinks and juice which helps to retain their flavors. Hence, it increases the quality of food and nutritional value as well (Burdurlu, Koca and Karadeniz, 2005). Degradation of vitamin C undergoes both anaerobic and aerobic pathways. Qxidation of vitamin C in aerobic pathway occurs mainly during the processing of food whereas anaerobic degradation of vitamin C mainly during storage. Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is one of the decomposition products of vitamin C and acts as precursor of brown pigments (Burdurlu, Koca and Karadeniz, 2005). Vitamin C degradation in packaged fruit juices depends mainly on storage temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen level, residual hydrogen peroxide,H2O2 left after the sterilization of packaging material and trace metal ions (Ozkan, Kirca and Cameroglu, 2004). Consequently, studies on vitamin C content in foods are important in relation to the control of nutritional labels, the update of food databases and the establishment of dietary reference intakes. Orange juice is probably the most globally accepted fruit juice and it is recognized worldwide as a good source of ascorbic acid (Sharma, Singh and Saxena, 2006). In addition, there are many analytical methods used to determine the concentration of vitamin C in the pharmaceutical samples which are colorimetric method, titration, enzymatic method, flow injection analysis (FIA) and high- performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) (Arya and Mahajan, 1997). Reflectometer is an instrument that can used to analyze many different types of test which include ascorbic acid test that is concerned in this project. It provides a simple and rapid determination of vitamin C content in many pharmaceuticals product. LITERATURE REVIEW Various methods used in determination of Vitamin C In recent years, the determination of vitamin C has become an important subject in the field of biochemistry and commercial foods. This is because vitamin C plays an important role in maintaining human health (Chen and Sato, 1995). Due to the importance of vitamin C in human beings, the quantitative analysis of vitamin C has gained a significant increase in several areas of analytical chemistry such as pharmaceutical and food applications (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). There are numerous methods for the determination of vitamin C in a variety of natural samples, biological fluids and pharmaceutical formulations. The methods for the determination of vitamin C are spectrophotometric methods and non-spectrophotometric methods (Arya and Mahajan, 1997). For non-spectrophotometric methods are such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), titration, enzymatic method and fluorometry (Arya, Mahajan and Jain, 2000). Direct spectrophotometry also has been applied to determine the vitamin C content in soft drinks, fruit juices, and cordials after correction for background absorption in the UV region. Flow-injection analysis (FIA) In FIA, there is no air segmentation and it is not necessary for a state of chemical equilibrium to be reached. The sample is introduced into a carrier stream as a discrete plug. The presence of a sample-carrier interface allows diffusion-controlled dispersion of the sample as it is swept through narrow-bore tubing to create a concentration gradient. The flow-through detector monitors the change in concentration of the reaction product, which is displayed as a well-defined peak (Ball, 2006). Flow-injection analysis permits a simple, rapid and sensitive method for the determination of vitamin C where its systems allow faster sampling rates and consumed fewer reagents compared with segmented-flow analysis (Kleszczewki and Kleszczewska, 2002). Memon, Dahot and Ansari had proposed a method by using mono 1, 10-phenanthroline-iron(III) complex as oxidant. This experiment was based on its reducing reaction on mono(1-10-Phenanthroline)-iron(III) to tris(1,10-Phenanthroline)-iron(II) (ferroin) and the absorbance of ferroin was monitored at 510nm through spectrophotometer equipped with a flow through cell (Memon et al, 2000). In this analysis single channel manifold is used as shown in Figure 3. The reagent stream is pumped at the flow rate 1.1mL/min via a peristaltic pump equipped with PVC pump tubing. The vitamin C sample is introduced into the reagent stream via a rotary teflon valve. A calibration curve for vitamin C in the range 0-50ppm was plotted from the results obtained by Memon, Memon, Dahot and Ansari which are shown in Figure 4. They also studied about the effect of reaction coil and reagent concentration. From the graph (Figure 5), the maximum intensity was observed at 50cm reaction coil. While the results of the effect of reagent concentration obtained is shown in Figure 6 indicating that the maximum signal could be obtained at 35% reagent (Memon, Memon, Dahot and Ansari, 2000). This method can be improved within certain limits by increasing the volume of the injected sample in flow injection analysis. The sensitivity is increased two fold with the increase of sample volume. As conclusion, since the time required for sample preparation is short and reagent consumption is low, hence the method is highly economical and is suitable to use on routine basis for determination of ascorbic acid in pharmaceutical preparations (Memon et al, 2000). Ultraviolet (UV) spectrophotometry Direct ultraviolet spectrophotometry is a fast, simple and reliable method for the determination of vitamin C. This method can be done through alkaline treatment and the maximum absorption of vitamin C falls at 243nm at pH2 (Yanshan, 1997). The absorption of UV light by the sample matrix was the major problem in this method. Therefore, alkaline treatment method was found to be used as background correction in blank. This is because more than 95% of vitamin C will be destroyed in 10 minutes after alkaline treatment which is in the range of pH 12 to 13 (Salkic and Kubicek, 2008). UV spectrophotometry method was found to be applicable for most fruits, fruit juices and soft drinks except those that are unstable to alkaline treatment, and were deeply colored, or contained high concentration of caffeine, saccharin, caramel and tannic acid (Yanshan, 1997). To determine the total content of vitamin C in food samples, a well-established method was investigated by Khan, Rahman, Islam and Begum, 2006 by using the 2,4-dinitrophenyl hydrazine methods (DNPH). This is a simplified method for the simultaneous determination of total vitamin C employed coupling reaction of 2,4-dinitrophenyl hydrazine dye with vitamin C and followed by spectrophotometric determination. The spectrophotometric method involves the oxidation of ascorbic acid to dehydroascorbic acid by the action of bromine solution in the presence of acetic acid. Reaction between dehydoascorbic acid and 2,4-dinitrophenyl hydrazine at 37 Â °C temperature for three hours will form an osazone. The solution is treated with 85% H2SO4 to produce a red color complex. The absorbance of all standards was measured at 521 nm by using a UV-spectrophotometer. The results obtained were taken to contruct a calibration curve (Khan et al, 2006). The calibration curve was constructed by plotting the concentration versus the corresponding absorbance as shown by Figure 7. The molar absorptivity, ? can be obtained using Beer-Lambert plots. The reliabilty of this method was justified by the calculations of the % of standard deviation and it was found to be varied within the range from 0.20 to 2.45%. The reliability of this method was also confirmed from the consideration of the following expected interferences (Khan et al, 2006). There are a few interferences that might affect the results. First, the interference was due to the diketogulonic acid. At higher pH, destructive oxidation hydrolysis might occur. This results in the opening of the lactone ring of the ascorbic acid and loose the vitamin activity. These processes are naturally occurred in fruits and some amounts of diketogulonic acid are presence in the fruits. Besides that, diketogulonic acid has keto group that might form osazone when react with DNPH. Hence, there is a chance of error in this method which may give false results (Khan et al, 2006). Another interference was due to the extracted glucose which contains similar structure like vitamin C. Therefore, some of the glucose may be extracted in the meta-phosphoric acid during the extraction of ascorbic acid from sample. Glucose may also cause the formation of colored complex with DNPH and gives the false result in the determination of vitamin C. This was proven in Figure 8 where there is no absorption peak around the interested peak at 521nm (Khan et al, 2006). As conclusion, the method is simple and excellent for the determination of total vitamin C in fruits and vegetables (Khan, Rahman, Islam and Begum, 2006). Fluorometric Method Fluorometric analysis has been used for ascorbic acid assay in pharmaceutical preparations, beverages, special dietary foods and even for human serum (Arya, Mahajan and Jain, 2000). This method had been reported to have successful application to a wide range of foodstuffs, including liver, milk, fresh and canned fruit, raw and cooked vegetables, and potato powder (Ball, 2006). Previously, fluorometric determinations of vitamin C have been developed based on condensation reactions of vitamin C with o-phenylenediamine and on the oxidation with mercury (II) of vitamin C to form quinoxaline derivative. The reaction products of these methods exhibit fluorescensce (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). Figure 9 shows the reaction of the dehydroascorbic acid with 1,2-phenylenediamine dihydrochloride to form the fluorescent quinoxaline derivative 3(1,2dihydroxyethyl) furol[3,4-b]quinoxaline-1-one. The blank can be prepared by complexing the oxidized vitamin with boric acid to prevent the formation of the quinoxaline derivative. It is used to reveal any fluorescence due to interfering substances (Ball, 2006). Yusuf and Gurel have described a method by using Methylene Blue (MB) for the determination of vitamin C. This experiment was run by using a spectrofluorimeter to record the spectra and carry out fluorescence measurements. This method was used to determine the amount of vitamin C in the purified materials, specifically vitamin C tablets. MB is a member of thiazine dye group. It is widely used in many different areas. For example, a photo sensitizer is used to produce singlet oxygen in photodynamic therapy for the treatment of cancer. The highly colored oxidized form of MB can be reduced to be colorless leuco form, Leuco-Methylene Blue (LMB) which is shown in Figure 10. LMB is the reduced and colorless form of methylene blue (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). According to Yusuf and Gurel, the fluorescence bands of MB were obtained at 664nm for excitation state and 682nm for emission peaks. This was proven by the other researchers who also examined the emission bands at 682nm for MB and 452nm for LMB. In Figure 11, the emission peak of MB at 682nm increased due to the increase of its concentration. A linear relationship between MB concentration and intensity was obtained over the concentration range of mol L-1 MB (y= 49.082x + 94.46,r2=0.9969). The excitation peak of MB at 664 nm also linearly increased depending on the increase of its concentration (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). The studies of the effect of vitamin C on the fluorescence of MB is made to avoid any errors that might affect the accuracy of the results. In order to examine the effect of vitamin C on the fluorescence of MB at 664 nm, mol L-1 MB solutions, each solution was added with different concentration of vitamin C and were prepared under nitrogen (N2) atmosphere. This was shown in Figure 12 where the spectra were recorded at 664nm (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). Figure 12 above shows the excitation intensity of mol L-1 without adding vitamin C was about 1000.0 and above. The intensity was decreased by the increase of vitamin C concentration in MB solutions (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). Figure 13 shows the emission spectrum of mol L-1 MB as a function of time. Each spectrum was recorded at 1 minute intervals. The results showed that the fluorescence was not changed with time, reflecting that the fluorescence spectrum of MB was highly stable with time (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). In the redox reaction between ascorbic acid and MB, the ascorbic acid is oxidized to dehydroascorbic acid, while MB was reduced to colorless LMB as shown in the following: The calibration curve was made based on the concentration of MB (mol L-1). The results indicate that the fluorescence intensity of the system is a linear function of vitamin C concentration in the range of mol L-1 and the regression coefficient is 0.9941 as shown in Figure 15 (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). Table 1 below shows the tolerance towards different compounds that might cause interferences in this method. These compounds are usually present in most vitamin C tablets. The experimental results showed that the presence of hundred-fold excess of the all contaminant compounds and twenty-fold excess of citric acid did not significantly influence the determination of vitamin C using this method. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is no major interference caused by these compounds (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). So it is possible to use this method for direct determination of vitamin C in pharmaceuticals without separating the interfering materials. Table 2 lists the results obtained by the proposed method with triiodide method. It can be clearly seen that the results are in good agreement with the triiodide method (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). Thus, the proposed method provides a simple and sensitive fluorimetric procedure by using MB for the determination of vitamin C. This experiment also shows that MB could be used for fluorimetric determination of vitamin C in vitamin C tablets although it has only slightly fluorescence property compared to LMB. Therefore, as conclusion, it can be explained that the fluorescence intensity of MB was more sensitive to determine vitamin C concentration (Yusuf and Gurel, 2005). Stability of Vitamin C in Orange Juice Vitamin C is very susceptible to chemical and enzymatic oxidation during the processing, storage, and cooking of food. The catalyzed oxidation pathway of vitamin C degradation is the most important reaction pathway for the loss of vitamin C in foods. Therefore, vitamin C of orange juice is readily oxidized and lost during staying of the juice (Ball, 2006). On the other hand, there are several factors that will also affect the stability of vitamin C in orange juice. The factors are such as the effect of vitamin E, pH, and parameters which include air, heat, water as well as prolonged storage and overcooking (Kabasakalis, Siopidou, and Moshatou, 2000). According to Ball, a meta-oxygen-ascorbate complex is formed in the presence of molecular oxygen and trace amounts of transition metal which particularly are copper (II) and iron (III). This complex contains a resonance form of a diradical that rapidly decompose to give the ascorbate radical anion, the original metal ion, and hydrogen peroxide. This radical anion will in turn reacts with the oxygen to give dehydroascorbic acid (DHAA). For anaerobic pathway of vitamin C which occurs in the absence of free oxygen, the degradation is caused by the formation of diketogulconic acid. As the rate of degradation is maximum at pH 3 to pH 4, therefore this pathway is mostly responsible for anaerobic loss of vitamin C in canned grapefruit and orange juices (Ball, 2006). Effect of vitamin E on the stability of vitamin C in orange juice Vitamin E is a fat soluble antioxidant that has four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. In nature, these four tocopherols and four corresponding tocotrienols are designated as alpha-(?), beta-(?), gamma-(?) and delta-(?) according to the number and position of methyl substituent in chromonal ring (Ball, 2006). The vitamin E functions as a biological antioxidant by protecting the vital phospholipids in cellular and subcellular membranes from peroxidative degeneration. Vitamin E mostly accumulates in body which are liver and pancreas. But unlike vitamins A and D, vitamin E is essentially nontoxic (Ball, 2006). Nagymate and Fodor (2008) have designed a method to study the effect of vitamin E on the stability of vitamin C. In this experiment, vitamin E stock solution was prepared by dissolving ?-tocopherol in absolute ethanol. The orange juice which contained vitamin E and vitamin C was used as sample. The storage temperature of the vials was 4Â °C and they were covered with aluminium foil to prevent the effect of sunlight. Besides, two different temperatures were used to examine the effect of vitamin E at that temperature which half of the samples were stored at 20Â °C. On the other hand, the additive effect of these vitamins was also examined but only cool samples (4Â °C) were used for this experiment. Two samples were prepared which one contained vitamin E stock solution and vitamin C stock solution while another contained only vitamin C stock solution. The samples were analysed once a week for five weeks (Nagymate and Fodor, 2008). The results of the stability of vitamin C show that the presence of vitamin E influenced the decay of vitamin C. Figure 17 shows that there were differences between samples with or without vitamin E. From figure 17, it can be clearly seen that the concentration of vitamin C without vitamin E fell down to 1.2mg/L on the second day. However, in the presence of both vitamins, the decay was also observed, but it was lesser. The concentration of vitamin C in the orange juice with vitamin E was 13mg/L in the fifth week. As a result, it seems that vitamin E stabilized vitamin C in orange juice at a determined concentration. This is because vitamin E delay the oxidation of vitamin C thus, enhances the stability of vitamin C in orange juice. The combination of vitamin C with vitamin E makes the orange juice more stable and slower the degradation of orange juice. This concluded that orange juice with vitamin E addition is a good way to preserve the vitamin C content during storage (Nagymate and Fodor, 2008). Effect of temperature on the stability of vitamin C in orange juice Vitamin C of fruit juice is readily oxidized and lost depends on the conditions of storage. There are studies about the determination of the amounts of vitamin C content in fruit juices under different storage conditions. Kabasakalis, Sipadou and Moshatou had done an experiment to determine the rate loss of vitamin C with respect to time and temperature of storage. A long-life and short-life commercial orange juice 100% without preservatives and fresh orange juice were used for analysis. In this experiment, the days before the expiration date were recorded in Table 3 and Table 4 to observe the loss of vitamin C in short-life and long-life orange juice 100% as the expiration date was approached (Kabasakalis, Siopidou and Moshatou, 2000). Table 5 shows the loss of vitamin C from fresh and long-life commercial orange juice 100% during a 31 days period, with measurements made every 1 to 3 days. The samples were refrigerated into containers which after the initial measurement remained either open or with closed cap until the next measurement. Based on the results shown in table 5, the magnitude of vitamin C did not differ significantly between open and closed cap for both juices. The commercial orange juice lost higher amounts of vitamin C compared with fresh orange juice. As reported, decreases of vitamin C upon storage did not correspond to increases of dehydroascorbic acid levels. In fact, there was an increase of dehydoascorbic acid levels in aseptically packaged orange juices. This means that the overall nutritional quality of orange juices is affected upon storage (Kabasakalis, Siopidou and Moshatou, 2000). The loss of the vitamin C in a commercial long-life orange juice 100% stored in refrigerator and non-refrigerated for a period of 10 days in open containers were shown in Figure 18 (Kabasakalis, Siopidou and Moshatou, 2000). According to Figure 18, non-refrigerated samples show higher percentage loss of vitamin C as compared to refrigerated samples. This is because the dehydoascorbic acid, the oxidized form of ascorbic acid was more stable at lower temperatures. Thus, the vitamin C, in the form of dehydroascorbic acid for refrigerated orange juice was well retained than non-refrigerated orange juice (Kabasakalis, Siopidou and Moshatou, 2000). Effect of hydrogen peroxide on the stability of orange juice Hydrogen peroxide, H2O2 is the primary chemical for sterilization of plastic packaging material used in aseptic system. Aseptic packaging technology is widely used by fruit juice industry for the production of shelf-life stable fruit juices. A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation currently limits the residual of H2O2 to 0.5ppm, leached into distilled water, in finished food packages which stated in Code of Federal Regulations, 2000. However, during the sterilization of aseptic chambers or packaging material with H2O2, some residues will still be left on the packaging material or vapors generated during drying may get trapped inside the package upon sealing. These residues will then cause the degradation of vitamin C (Ozkan, Kirca and Cemeroglu, 2004). An experiment was proposed by Ozkan, Kirca and Cemeroglu to determine the rates of vitamin C degradation in orange juice with or without addition of H2O2 at various storage temperatures. In this experiment, the orange juice sample was thawed at room temperature and sodium benzoate was added to prevent spoilage. The degradation studies were done at H2O2 with 0.5ppm concentration at 20Â °C, 30Â °C and 40Â °C respectively. At regular time intervals, samples were removed from the water bath or incubator (Ozkan, Kirca and Cemeroglu, 2004). Then, the predetermined amounts of diluted sodium hydroxide solution were added rapidly to the samples to halt the reaction between H2O2 and vitamin C. The samples were then rapidly cooled by plugging into an ice water bath and held at -30Â °C until analyzed for vitamin C content. Vitamin C concentration was measured by using HPLC method. Qzkan, Kirca and Cemeroglu had modified the method by blending the orange juice sample with metaphosphoric acid. The sample was filtered through a membrane filter and was analyzed using HPLC (Shimadzu brand) (Ozkan, Kirca and Cemeroglu, 2004).Vitamin C contents of orange juice were plotted for various temperatures at 0.5ppm H2O2 concentration which is shown in Figure 19 below. From Figure 19, the results show that at higher temperature, the rate of vitamin C degradation also increased. The addition of 0.5ppm H2O2 did not greatly increase the degradation of vitamin C. However, raising H2O2 concentration from 0.5ppm to 5ppm resulted in a tremendous increase in degradation rates which was recorded in Table 6. At 0.5ppm H2O2, the antioxidant substances in orange juice which was flavonols reacted with H2O2, thereby preventing the autoxidation of vitamin C. The protective mechanism of flavanols was mainly due to chelation of metal ions and action of antioxidant. Flavanols function as antioxidants by donating the hydrogen ions to reactive free radicals which may otherwise cause the autoxidation of vitamin C (Ozkan, Kirca and Cemeroglu, 2004). Ozkan, Kirca and Cemeroglu also studied the degradation of vitamin C in the absence of H2O2. In this case, the activation energy, Ea was taken into account to determine the stability of vitamin C in orange juice. The temperature dependence of the degradation of vitamin C in orange juice was compared by calculating Ea and temperature quotients (Q10) at 20Â ° to 40Â °C from the following equation: These results clearly indicate that the rate of vitamin C degradation in the presence of H2O2 was slower at 30Â °C to 40Â °C than 20Â °C to 30Â °C. This indicates that at 30Â °C to 40Â °C, the least effect of temperature rise on vitamin C degradation. The results obtained for Ea shows that higher Ea in the presence of H2O2. This means that higher energy needed for the degradation of vitamin C. Therefore, the reaction time is slower and the degradation of vitamin C also slower. As conclusion, the effect of temperature on the degradation rates of vitamin C in orange juice was more pronounced at higher H2O2 concentrations. Therefore, greater vitamin C losses should be expected as residual H2O2 concentration and storage temperature increase in aseptically packaged fruit juices (Ozkan, Kirca and Cemeroglu, 2004). Effect of pH on the stability of vitamin C pH is a measure of acidity or basicity of a solution. pH is one of the primary factor that would affects the stability of vitamin C in orange juice. Hence, the pH value of the matrix has an influence on the stability of vitamin C. According to FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on Human Vitamin and Mineral Requirements, Bangkok, Thailand, 1998, the vitamin C will decay if the pH higher than 4 (Nagymate and Fodor, 2008). Vitamin C is unstable in neutral and alkaline environments, therefore the higher the pH value and the longer the exposure, the greater the loss of vitamin C. This is because the higher the pH value, the faster the oxidation reaction of vitamin C and causes the degradation of vitamin C. Besides that, the increase in pH also related to deterioration of fruit characteristic which in this literature review, orange juice is more concerned. Table 8 below shows the pH value of the fruit juice with storage time (Ajibola, Babatunde and Suleiman, 2009). In this Table 8, the pH values of the orange juice were higher at room temperature and keep increasing from week to week. This study concluded that, though pH was significant for the stability of vitamin C, it was not the sole factor in controlling the deterioration of vitamin C in orange juice with storage life (Ajibola, Babatunde and Suleiman, 2009). On the other hand, the loss of vitamin C activity during oxidative degradation of vitamin C occurs with the hydrolysis of the dehydroascorbic acid lactone to yield 2,3-diketogulonic acid. This hydrolysis is favored by alkaline solution. Dehydroascorbic acid is most stable at pH 5.5 but decrease in stability as pH increases which is more than pH 5.5 (Fennmena, 1996). For example, half-time values of dehydroasorbic acid hydrolysis at 23Â °C were 100 and 230 minutes at pH 7.2 and pH 6.6 respectively as shown in Figure 20. At pH 5.0 or below, dehydroascorbic acid was quite stable which decayed by less than 3% over 4 hours. This experiment evaluated the effect of hydrogen ion concentration on delactonization of dehyroascorbic acid over the range of pH 3.0 to pH 8.0. The possible influence of the presence of oxygen was done by equilibrating the reaction mixture before and during the incubation with 100% oxygen or with 100% nitrogen. The results indicated no change in the decay rate of dehydoascorbic acid was obvious with these alterations of atmospheric conditions. The rate of dehydroascorbic acid hydrolysis markedly increases with increasing temperature but was unaffected by the presence of oxygen (Bode, Cunningham and Rose, 1990). Other researchers had proposed a method to determine the effect of pH on the degradation of vitamin C in orange j

The Effect of Salt on Boiling Temperature of Water

EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE PROJECTS:The Effect of Salt on the Boiling Temperature of Water(Initially prepared by a 4th Grade student)To quickly jump to a section below click on:INITIAL OBSERVATIONCooking instructions tell you to add salt to water before boiling it. PROJECT TITLEThe Effect of Salt on the Boiling Temperature of WaterPURPOSE OF THE PROJECTTo find out how table salt affects the boiling temperature of water. HYPOTHESISAdding table salt to boiling water will cause the water to boil at a higher temperature.MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT ·Table Salt  ·Distilled Water  ·2 Quart Cooking Pot  ·Pint measuring cup  ·Teaspoon and tablespoon measuring spoons  ·Thermometer  ·Stirring spoon EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDUREBoil one quart of distilled water on a stove. Measure the temperature of the boiling water. Record the highest temperature reading. This is the control to compare with. Measure out table salt using a kitchen measuring spoon. Level the spoonful. Add the measured salt to the b oiling water and stir.Measure the temperature of the boiling water with the salt in it. Record the highest temperature reading. Repeat for other amounts of salt. DATAData Obtained: 2/25/95, Mankato, MN|| Amount of boiling water|2 Cups| Temperature of boiling water (Control)|212. 9 °F| Amount of table salt added to boiling water: Run #1|1 Tbl. | Temperature of boiling water after adding salt: Run #1|215. 6 °F| Additional amount of table salt added to boiling water: Run #2|1 Tbl. | Temperature of boiling water after adding salt: Run #2|218.  °F| || EXPERIMENTAL OBSERVATIONSWhen the salt was added to boiling water it bubbled up more, and then stopped boiling. Shortly afterwards, it boiled again. If the thermometer extends beyond the outside of the pot it reads a higher temperature. Heat from the stove burner makes the thermometer read higher. Keep the thermometer over the pot when making temperature measurements. CALCULATIONS ·Total amount of table salt added for Run #1: 0 + 1 = 1 Tbl.  ·Total amount of table salt added for Run #2: 1 + 1 = 2 Tbl.RESULTS|| Temperature of boiling water (Control)|212. 9 °F| Amount of table salt added to boiling water: Run #1|1 Tbl. | Temperature of boiling water after adding salt: Run #1|215. 6 °F| Total amount of table salt added to boiling water: Run #2|2 Tbl. | Temperature of boiling water after adding salt: Run #2|218. 3 °F| || Amount of Table Salt Added VersusWater Boiling TemperatureCONCLUSIONS ·Is the hypothesis correct? Yes. Adding table salt to water causes the water to boil at a higher temperature.  ·Problems with doing the experiments.The temperature readings were hard to make. Gloves had to be worn to keep my hands from getting too hot. Had to be careful that the stove heat was not hitting the thermometer.  ·Other things learned. Be careful when adding salt to boiling water. It makes the water boil vigorously for a second or two. RELATED QUESTIONS ·Why do you think cooking instructions tell you to add salt when boiling water? When the water is hotter, you can cook food faster. Salt also makes the food taste better. || HOME[->0]|| [->0] – .. /index. html