Acetic Acid in Vinegar

In this lab, the groups used a valuable technique, titration, in order to complete the
experiment. Titration is a method of analysis that will allow you to determine the precise
endpoint of a reaction (ChemLab). The main goal of the lab was to determine the molar
concentration and mass percentage of acetic acid in commercially available vinegar. The groups
added NaOH to the vinegar to determine the molarity of the acetic acid. In order to more clearly
see the reaction, three drops of phenolphthalein were added.
A company executive decided to make an experiment to determine why there were so
many complaints with its new salt-and-vinegar chips. In a lab with hired scientists, it determined
the mass of the two flasks. They put 10 mL of each vinegar solution in separate flasks, followed
by three drops of phenolphthalein in each flask. They measured the mass of the flasks with the
vinegar in them, and subtract that number by the mass of the empty flasks to find the masses of
the vinegar alone in grams. They used this knowledge to determine the amount of vinegar g/mL.
They were then ready to see the different amounts of acetic acid that the two different solutions
of vinegar consisted of. The scientists added sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to the two flasks until
the flasks began to turn a light pink color. After the flasks turned to a light pink color, they
recorded the volume of NaOH that was required to do this. They proceeded to do three more
trials of this to get the most accurate data. After this, the researchers calculated the amount of
acetic acid the two vinegars contained.
After figuring out the amount of acetic acid each vinegar has, the company realized
where it went wrong when making the salt-and-vinegar chips. It realized that the brand of
vinegar that she normally buys contains, on average, 7.4% of acetic acid in the solution; in
contrast, the brand that they used to make the chips that their customers did not like consisted of

an average of 5.9% of acetic acid. They will now never use that 5.9-percent-concentration
vinegar to make salt-and-vinegar chips again.
There are many similarities between the lab that the groups had conducted in class, and
this real-world application of the topic. Both parties worked along the lines of finding out the
amount of acetic acid that was used in the multiple types of distilled vinegar and used titration to
complete this process. In both the lab and the real-life situation, the two parties had to discover
the amount of acetic acid that the vinegar dressings contained in order to figure out what the
problem was using titration helped figure out exactly the concentration of each trial. Using
titration not only helped to find out concentration but the pink color indicator help visualize what
can happen if too much vinegar or too little is in the dressing. The groups in the lab and the
company figured out what the problem was through the use of complex titrations. The company
had some scientists that it was capable of hiring -- which was used to figure out the problem with
the vinegar that it used for the chips, and compared it to the vinegar that it normally uses. The
investigation that the two groups were essentially the same; however, the company used the
knowledge to compare the difference between two vinegar solutions, while the lab groups simply
wanted to find out the amount of acetic acid in one vinegar solution and their results were based
on the light pink color that titration caused.
Works Cited
"ChemLab -Techniques-Titration." ChemLab - Techniques - Titration. ChemLab, n.d. Web. 20
Nov. 2013.
Laboratoy Inquiry in Chemistry, 3rd Edition, Investigation 11: How Much Acetic Acid is in
Vinegar pg 61,62. Richard Bauer, James Birk, Doug Sawyer. 2009