Citric acid is a weak, colorless organic acid. The main sources of citric acid are citrus fruits such as limes and lemons, and due to this many people confuse citric acid and vitamin C. Citric acid is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle or Krebs cycle, an important process in the body to get…
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While cold and flu season are over for now, allergy season is here. When my allergies are in full force I get quite a tickle in my throat that causes me to cough quite frequently. To deal with this I like to keep cough drops on hand to help ease the cough.…
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Tis the season for spraying DEET in our faces to make sure we don’t get eaten alive by bugs! DEET, or N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide, is one of the most widely used active ingredients in bug sprays. It was developed by the US Army for this purpose in 1946 and made available to the public in 1957. There…
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While eating breakfast with my kid, they asked me about the dyes in the cereal. That got me thinking about the different dyes in food and how these dyes were analyzed. I thought that a UV-Vis instrument would be the best choice. But, what about an HPLC with a UV detector? I figured a UV…
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Amino acids are the building blocks of life. Every living thing uses amino acids to build the proteins needed to do various functions within the organism. Where do amino acids come from and how many are needed to function? For humans, there are a total of 20 amino acids that are necessary for your body…
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Vitamin C is a water soluble, key nutrient found in fruits, vegetables and berries. Unlike many animals, humans cannot synthesize their own vitamin C and must get it from their diets. One way to supplement the intake of vitamin C would be to take a vitamin. I decided to test 3 different vitamins for vitamin…
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Solvents are used extensively in labs and chemical manufacturing as starting materials for a chemical process; the diluent for a product, starting material, or reaction; or in the analysis of a starting material or product for quality purposes. Often times after use, that solvent is then sent into a waste stream to be dealt with…
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Folic Acid, Folate, or Vitamin B9 is a key vitamin used by the human body to generate new healthy red blood cells, form DNA and RNA, and break down a certain amino acid, homocysteine, that can be harmful in high amounts. The need for Folic Acid is especially important during pregnancy, which is why there…
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It only seems appropriate during cold and flu season that we do something on soaps and hand sanitizers, and interestingly enough, we have some customers who are analyzing exactly that. One of the active ingredients our customers are looking for is BZK (Benzalkonium chloride), also known as BAC, BKC, and BAK. BZK is an antimicrobial…
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Whether you drink a beer from a major manufacturer, the local brewer down the street, or even brew the beer yourself, knowing the ethanol content of that beer is an important piece of information. Up until 1995 the alcohol content wasn’t allowed to be on beer labels at all until the Coors Brewing Company successfully…
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