Have you ever eaten a lot of food wayyyy too quickly and it then continues to hurt your tummy? What do you do to make it feel better? Take an anti-acid? But, which kind of the many will work the best? We did a lab to discover which kind of antacid would work best against a stomach ache.
Stomach aches can happen for many reasons. But, in this instance, were discussing when the amount of stomach acid in your tummy is acting up. On the pH scale, stomach acid is very acidic with the pH of anywhere between 1.5 and 3.5. That’s highly acidic! Thinking logically, how would you think to cure this kind of stomach ache. Balance it out with a basic, right? Believe it or not, there is something that cures this high amounts of acidity. It’s called and antacid. The antacid neutralizes the acid to a healthy amount. There are many types of antacids. There are solid tablets, liquids and even baking soda has been proven to help an upset stomach. Now, to test which one of these methods work best, we obviously aren’t going to use actual stomach acid. Instead, we will use 25mL of vinegar, which has a pH of about 4.
To test this experiment, we took vinegar, 3 1000mg Tums Ultra solid antacid tablets, 1tbs of liquid basic brand antiacid, and a 1tbs of baking soda. To carry out this experiment, we measured out 25 mg of vinegar into a beaker. Then we crushed up the 1000 mg tablets with a grinder. After, we poured the antacid into the vinegar beaker and watched it’s reaction. Then, using litmus paper, we recorded the pH of the neutralization. To further test on the amounts of antacid, we also did a trial using 2 of the 1000mg tablets.
Results followed as:
| Substance | pH Level |
| Solid Antacid (1) | 5 |
| Solid Antacid (2) | 5 |
| Liquid Antacid | 4 |
| Baking Soda | 7 |
Based on the data, you can see that baking soda clearly was a better raising the pH level for stomach acid. It made the acid definitely neutral. You can also see that there is was no change in the pH of the liquid antacid and both the solid antacids only raised the acidity by one pH level. So, you can then infer that baking soda would also, by a long shot, be best in helping to make the acidity in your stomach more basic. This experiment might also have been slightly inaccurate due to there being a difference in the units of measurement for the antacids. This could have distorted the difference in amounts. Also, the brands of all of the products were different which could have also caused a variation in results.
Alex Blair's Biology Blog :) 