Title: Comparing the effectiveness of several Antacids

Abstract: When using an Antacid, its a medication taken by the mouth. The purpose of this is to slow down the pain with acid indigestion. Antacids work together to neutralize excess stomach acid, which starts during the digestion process. Here are some common Antacids that was used in the lab: Rolaids, Maalox, and Tums. Some don't know that these antacids have at least one of these ingredients: aluminum, Calcium, magnesium, and sodium ( Directly on the back of the products). The aim of this experiment was to evaluate and test the effectiveness of antacids.

Hypothesis: All antacid will not be equally effective because they all have different ingredients.

Introduction: Within this experiment, the three different antacids was chosen: Maalox, Rolaids, and Tums. To get started we had to crush one antacid and add it to 100 ml of distilled water in a beaker. We did all three antacids separately, but made sure that all three antacids dissolved properly, meaning you don't see some on the bottom of the beaker. By using a stirring rod, stirring can help dissolve the antacids. We had to transfer the three different antacids into three separate test tubes with a pipet adding 5 mL of antacids solution. When we done this we then had to add 4 drops of bromcresol purple to the test tube. Bromcresol purple is a pH indicator. Then we had to add 0.1 M hydrochloric acid to the three test tubes, we had to mix after every drop. this was repeated until we say the solution turn yellow. which indicated an acid occur. Each antacid had different numbers of drops to turn yellow. we recording it in our chart.

Antacids Active Ingredient # Drops of HCL Added | Alka Seltzer | NaHCO3 | 130 | Tums | CaCo3 | 63 | Rolaids | Mg(OH)2 | 36 | Maalox | Al(OH)3 | 4 |
(Table 1) By looking at this chart we se here that Alka Seltzer is more effective.

Conclusion: The purpose of this experiment was to determine if these types of commercial antacid was effective. like mentioned before all antacid are not equally effective because antacid consist of other chemical ingredients. In table 1, we see that Alka Seltzer was more effective due to the most drop, Tums was next, then Rolaids, then finally Maalox which is least effective.

References: Vodopich, D.S. and Moore R. (2008). Biology Laboratory Manual, 8th edition. McGraw Hill Companies, Inc.