1. Lab: Investigating pH of Various Household Products
Objective is to determine the pH of common household substances and use this information to identify the substance as an acidic, basic or neutral solution.

2. Vocabulary Building: be sure that you can define these terms before doing the lab
Solvent Solute Solution Aqueous Dissociate Hydrogen ion Hydroxide ion Neutral Solution Acidic Solution Basic Solution

3. Water in a Glass How do the Molecules appear?
Diagram below shows
Water molecules with 2 hydrogen
Atoms and 1 oxygen atom
Above is a diagram of the way in water molecules can look in the glass to the left. The water molecules breaks into ions, hydroxide and hydrogen.

4. Materials
Need an “indicator” which is something that detects the presence of a certain substance
Paper Indicators to determine if solution is acid/base:
1. pH paper *indicates the presence and amount of H+
2. litmus red paper
3. litmus blue paper

5. Set up for the Lab
Test tubes contain various household substances

6. Above you can see the three types of papers
Above you can see the three types of papers. The pH paper is the light yellow colored
paper. The red paper is red and the blue paper is blue. A beaker of distilled water is available to
clean the stirring rod after each application of a substance on the paper. Preventing
contamination of solutions is very important.

7. Data Table 2 indicates the type of solution for a given household
product
Solution
Guess
Acid
Base
Neutral
Milk x
Vinegar
Egg white
Orange Juice
Ammonia
Unknown #1
Unknown #2
Unknown #1 – Baking Soda Water
Unknown #2 – Lemon Juice

8. Data Table 1: Color of Paper Indicator With a Given Household
Product
Solution
pH Paper
Litmus Red
Litmus Blue
Milk
6-7
Red
Vinegar
1-2
Egg white
7-8
Blue
Orange Juice 4
Ammonia 9
Unknown #1
8-9
Unknown #2

10. Part b: Neutralization Reaction
Phenolphtalein is another indicator. It will go from colorless to pink if the solution becomes basic. What does that mean to say a solution is basic? In this part, you will
use this indicator to demonstrate a neutralization reaction.

11. Equation for a Neutralization Reaction
In our lab, we used ammonia to create a basic solution. Then we added
Vinegar until the solution was not longer basic.