Abstract: “Riboflavin, also known as vitamin B-2, is a poorly water-soluble vitamin present in dairy products, meat, fish, and certain fruits and vegetables, particularly dark-green vegetables. Riboflavin is of biochemical significance, and signs of depletion arise within only a few days of dietary deprivation. (Destino, J.) The necessity for many B-vitamins are crucial for athletes and active individuals to help reduce stress on metabolic pathways. It is noticed that numerous energy drinks, for example, Monster® and Rockstar®, contain B-vitamins, including riboflavin. The energy drinks contain the recommended daily amount (1.3 mg) or more per serving. The determination of Monster® and Rockstar® energy drink riboflavin concentration was found by using a standardized curve made from a 20 fold dilution of the 1 mM riboflavin stock solution.”
East Central IL ACS Undergraduate Research Conference
Thank you for joining us for the 5th Annual ECI-ACS conference!
Interesting use of a home built instrument. Why do you think your measurement of the concentration of Riboflavin in the monster and rockstar drinks was so different compared to the known values? I noticed that the difference between observed and known concentrations for the two drinks were different, with the observed value for monster being 73% of the known, while rockstar was only 60% of the known. Can you comment to why you see differences in detection efficiency between the two drinks?
Interesting poster and topic. Can you explain why you chose to buffer it at pH = 3.5? Also I’m sorry I don’t quite get the homemade instrument – can you explain that a bit better, especially how the multimeter figures in? And how challenging was it to print off the components?
Thank you! I chose to make the sodium citrate/citric acid buffer at 3.5 since the Monster was measured at a pH of 3.88, and Rockstar was measured at a pH of 3.54 according to the laboratory solution preparation. Also, once the standard solution is mixed, it will be 0.2-0.3 pH units higher because of the basic riboflavin solution. The homemade instrument was challenging to set up, but the multimeter was wired to the metal rods connected to the detector. The blue LED comes in the right side, which then passes through the cuvette, and the detector picked up the emission intensity on the left side of the right angle. The multimeter was then used to detect the volts emitted from the solutions to obtain the standardized graph.