SRP Report

Question
How can I differentiate between various kinds of milk?

Introduction
Molecules in liquids have both positive and negative charges which attract and repel from
eachother to create pulling and pushing forces that allow the liquid to move and have an
overall neutral charge. However, molecules that are found at the surface of liquids are more
exposed to air and feel more downwards pressure and force than the molecules below them.
This is called surface tension.
Detergent is a compound which has both polar (hydrophilic) and non polar (hydrophobic)
parts. This means that it has an end which attracts water and an end which repels water.
By conducting this experiment I will observe how detergent reacts with the surface molecules
of different milk types and investigate whether the detergent repels water faster in milk that
has a higher or lower amount of cream content. The food colouring will act as an indicator to
show the movement of surface molecules. My independent variable will be the milk and my
dependant variable will be the reaction which takes place after I add the detergent.

Aim
To determine the effect of detergent on various types of milk and discover how to
differentiate between these types of milk based on cream content.

Hypothesis
I believe that the full cream milk will have a shorter reaction with the detergent because it has
the most amount of cream. In full cream milk the detergent will attract more fat and repel less
water in the milk so the reaction will be faster. However, I think the skim milk will have a
longer reaction time because of its lack of cream content. The detergent will have to bond
with less cream and repel more water which will take a longer time to do. Overall, I believe
the full cream milk will take 25 seconds to react, lite milk will take 30 seconds and skim milk
will take 35 seconds. To answer my question I think I will be able to differentiate between
milk types by determining that the more cream in the milk, the shorter time it will take to
react with detergent.

Equipment
A flat surface
6 plastic bowls
1L Full cream milk
1L Lite milk
1L Skim milk
Dropper with mL markings
Twelve drops (0.6 mL) pink food colouring
Twelve drops (0.6 mL) yellow food colouring
Twelve drops (0.6 mL) blue food colouring
Nine drops (0. 45mL) detergent

 Stopwatch
Measuring cup
Labels
Pen
Paper/book

Risk Assessment
This experiment is fairly safe as it doesn't use any dangerous materials and substances. The
equipment used in this experiment are all household items which people use in their everyday
life so there is a low risk factor.
However, there are still risks and dangers of conducting this experiment so a safe workspace
should always be ensured. A person may see the mixture of food colouring, milk and
detergent and think that it is edible. This is a risk because they may start to drink the mixture
and consume the detergent which is harmful. To minimise this risk, I will tell people in the
area that the milk is inedible.
Another risk that may arise is the fact that I am using liquids that can be spilled easily such as
milk and food colouring and a person who walks past may trip over and experience an injury.
The spillage of food colouring can also cause stains on carpet and clothing and this is a risk
because stains are difficult to remove.
To ensure that spills do not happen I will do all of my measurements over a nearby sink so
that excess liquids do not fall on the floor or on my clothes.
If the area in which I'm conducting my experiment is occupied by many people, a risk that
my come up is that someone could knock over a bottle of food colouring and cause the bottle
to break. This could result in a spill and broken glass fragments which could easily harm
someone. To minimise this risk I will remove people from the area and put bottles, jars and
containers away after I am done using them.

Method
1. Gather six plastic bowls and label two bowls for full cream milk, two bowls for lite milk
and two bowls for skim milk. Fill these bowls each with 250mL of milk according to the
labels using a measuring cup.
2. Arrange these bowls into two rows, having the three different milk types in each of the
rows. The bowls at the back will be the controlled variables.
3. In each bowl, place one drop (0.05mL) each of pink, blue and yellow food colouring using
a dropper in a triangular format at the centre of the milk's surface.
4. Turn the stopwatch on. Press start and stop simultaneously to find the reaction time.
Record this reaction time on a piece of paper then reset the timer.
5. In one bowl, place a drop (0.05mL) of detergent at the centre of the milk's surface. Start
the stopwatch as soon as the reaction begins.
6. Stop the stopwatch when the reaction between the milk and detergent finishes then subtract
the recorded reaction time from this amount. Record this final result on a piece of paper or
book.

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for the next two bowls of milk then repeat the experiment two more
times. Record all results on paper or in a book.

Results

Analysis
From my results I can interpret that full cream milk reacted for the shortest time with the
detergent. The lite milk had a reacting time that lasted longer than the full cream milk but was
shorter than the skim milk which had the longest lasting reaction out of all the milk types.
The average reaction duration for the full cream milk was 40.3 seconds, 46.1 seconds for the
lite milk and 55.03 seconds for the skim milk. These results show that the reactions lasted
longer than I had expected as they are significantly higher amounts than the times that I
mentioned in my hypothesis (25,30 and 35 seconds). While I was observing the reactions, I
realised that food colouring moved around a lot quicker in the full cream milk whereas the
food colouring in the lite and skim milk travelled slower which resulted in a longer reacting
time.

Discussion
I noticed that the times that the milk types were reacting with the detergent were becoming
increasingly higher in each of my three attempts. I'm not exactly sure why this was the case
but it may be because I could have placed an unequal amount of food colouring or detergent
in the bowls at one point or had accidently put more than one drop of those ingredients in the
milk. I didn't come across many major problems during this experiment but as an
improvement I could have used more types of milk to add variety, such as soy, coconut or
almond milk. Unfortunately, the process of conducting this experiment was time consuming
due to the fact that I had to wash the dropper and measuring cup multiple times to ensure that
none of the liquids were to become contaminated with another liquid.

Conclusion
To answer my aim, I observed that I can differentiate between full cream, lite and skim milk
by placing food colouring and detergent on to the surface of the milk and recording the

amount of time that the reaction between the substances takes. If the reacting time is long
then the milk type is skim. A reacting time that is quite short means that the liquid is full
cream milk and a the milk with a reacting time that is in between the skim and full cream
milk times is lite milk. Overall, the more cream that the milk has, the shorter the reaction
between the detergent and milk will be.
The effect that detergent has on different types of milk is that it makes a significant reaction
which I observed in my experiment. The reason why this reaction happens is because
detergent contains surfactants which lower the surface tension in liquids such as milk, which
contains water and fat. Because detergent has a polar and a non polar end (as explained in the
introduction section), the hydrophobic (non polar) end bonds with the fat/cream in the milk.
This bond is so strong that the food colouring and excess water in the milk is pushed
outwards and begins to move around rapidly. These movements decrease the surface tension
of the milk.
The full cream milk had less water to push outwards which is why it had a shorter duration of
reacting with the detergent. Skim milk had less cream to bond with and needed to push more
water out. This resulted in a longer reacting time with the detergent. Lite milk had less fat
than full cream milk but more than skim milk so it had a reacting time that lied between those
of the other milk types.