Pill Dissolving Experiment – Lab Report

Our first week in Science 9 Honours and we’ve already gotten to the fun parts of science! Experiments!! Mr. Horton assigned us groups that we’d work with to see which painkiller tablet would dissolve quickest. We wanted to test 5 different painkillers we regularly use and see if it’s dissolving rate affects the time it heals our pain. We often resort to popping a Tylenol or Advil when we’ve got a headache but have we ever wondered how do they work? How does the medicine actually reach to our source of pain? What is curing us of our pain? What is causing us the pain? Which pill works best and why?

Before our lab, we had a day to prep. We did some research and came up with a rough plan of action. Digging deeper into pain relievers, my group (Claire B, April T, Nolan F) found a number of interesting facts. A number of pills enter through the blood stream, not quite focusing on a specific area of pain. It spreads throughout your entire body and latching on to an enzyme that creates a molecule, prostaglandin (it develops pain through inflammation), and blocks it from making that molecule. With all the molecules being blocked, the body is now more at ease, the pain is subsiding. Advil is actually made up of ibuprofen, which is a drug that is recognized as a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug(NSAID) class. Other drugs that are similar are aspirin (which is also known as a acetylsalicylic acid) and naproxen (a propionic acid), they all have similar properties and belong to the same drug class which reduce fever, stiffness and even menstrual cramps.  Naproxen is found in Aleve, Ibuprofen in Motrin IB along with Advil, and Aspirin is mainly in 3 different brands, Bayer, Excedrin and Bufferin.

They make one of the two major NSAID’s groups, the other is Tylenol. These two groups are the ones most commonly sold over the counters, they are used to alleviate mild pains opposed to morphine which relieves more severe pain. Tylenol is created with acetaminophen aka paracetomal. It is it’s entire other major group alone, funny right? The reason for that is unlike Ibuprofen, acetaminophen does not treat inflammation. Looking more, not too much is known on Tylenol or how it works. Paracetomal drugs include Tylenol, Panadol and Calpol. There is really not too much of a difference between ibuprofen and paracetomal, one treats inflammation and the other does not, and paracetomal supposedly causes less stomach discomfort. To sum it up, majority of the drugs listed above enter through our blood stream, latches on and prevents prostaglandin (pain molecule) from producing, is metabolized through our liver and promptly relieves our pain.

Taking Ibuprofen by mouth takes about 20-30 minutes before it starts to work, Aspirin 20 minutes, Tylenol on an empty stomach 15-20 minutes while on a full stomach 30-60 minutes. Must be the stomach acid content that affects the time. Pretty interesting stuff!

On to the actual lab part! Our original plan was to have 5 beakers each holding about 30ml of vinegar, 40ml water , 5ml milk and about 5ml of mushed apple. The next day we realized that we had changed to many variables so our lab would be inconclusive. We wanted a stomach like environment which is why we had brainstormed the plan before, now that we had reduced it we still wanted the same goal. Our stomach has acid in it, its what breaks down our food. On top of our change of fluid, we were surprised with the size of the vessel we’d be conducting the experiment in. We assumed it would be a 100ml+ beaker, instead we had a rough 20ml test tube. We had to reduce our size and ratios! At the end we ended up putting 12ml of water and 5ml of vinegar. Mr. Horton had purchased five different pain relievers. Advil liqui gel, Aspirin(Bayer), Tylenol, Motrin and Life Brand.

We placed the test tubes that were filled with our mix into a beaker which was atop a heat pad. There we heated the liquids up to about a 40°C, quickly moving them to a test tube rack. We hoped that by the time we were ready to drop the pills in the temperature would stay around 37°C. Our stomach is about that temperature. Next we dropped the pills in, set up a 35 minute timer and a time lapse video. Here’s the video!

Here are some of the notes from the lab 🙂

Partners: Claire B, Nolan F, April T

Purpose: To see which pill dissolves the fastest, seeing which reacts in the least amount of time to aid our headaches.

Prediction: I think Aspirin will dissolve first.

Hypothesis: If we create a stomach like environment, then the aspirin will dissolve first.

Materials: 1 beaker, 5 test tubes, 3 graduated cylinders, 2 eye droppers, 1 heat pad, 1 test tube tray.

Procedure:

1. We put 12ml of water into a test tube plus 5ml of vinegar.
2. Then we stirred it briefly, before placing it into a beaker which was on a heating pad. We brought it up to about 40 degrees Celsius.
3. Next, we placed it into a wooden test tube tray/rack, where the bottom of the tube was exposed, and dropped the pills in at the same time.
4. We set our timer for 35 minutes, started a time lapse video and closely observed the pills.
5. We kept track of our observations periodically.
6. Unfortunately we had to stop the experiment after 15 minutes, 10 minutes remaining.

Observations:

31 minutes > Tylenol looks like white fuzz

• Advil looks same, looks like expanding the letters peeled off
• Asprin looks like a small gathered fuzz at bottom of test tube
• Motrin A flattening pancake…starting to get fuzzy
• Life Brand…exploding like the capsule broke open ‘fluff’ is coming out

 

26 minutes > Advil still looks the same

• Tylenol still like a thick layer of fuzz
• Asprin like a small amount of fuzz
• Motrin looks like its rising pancake, still sorta fuzzy
• Life Brand capsule breaking apart almost as if exploding from the inside out.

 

24 minutes > Advil looks like the top is evaporating? Turning invisible…the gel layer getting thinner.

 

20 minutes > Tylenol Fuzz expanding

• There’s now a line split down the advil, it’s white on the edges
• Aspirin still the same
• Motrin deflated and now fuzz is like rising upwards
• Life brand still the same, a pile of grossness with a miz of red and white fuzz everywhere in the bottom

 

15 minutes > Tylenol Still same amount of fuzz

• Advil looks like a bean…top is narrower the bottom is fat
• Asprin looks like weak amount of snow
• Motrin looks like it’s climbing the sides of the test tube
• Life Pill looks like blood in snow
• They all got little bubbles in the test tube…Tylenol has the most bubbles

 

 

In the end, after spending 25 minutes, we had to stop the experiment 10 minutes early, submerged in our vinegar water concoction, the pills were pretty much dissolved. Our lab supported our hypothesis, the Aspirin dissolved the fastest. I was quite surprised that even after the Tylenol, Aspirin, Motrin & Life brand has turn to life a fluffy white powder in the tube, Advil liquid gel remained in its pill shaped form. At the beginning of this lab Mr. Horton had said that his son said that the Advil liquid gel worked best out of all the pills for him. We were shocked to see that the Advil barely even changed, the closest thing to exploding it did was balloon at the bottom and have a tiny slit down the middle with a white fluid slowly dripping out. At the end of the whole experiment I thought it was a enjoyable lab! It really did open many doors to learning more about pharmaceutical drugs and how they work. Our experiment was a one time go, if we repeated it a few more times our results would have a more accurate and clear answer. This is definitely one of the neat intriguing things that drew me to science!

 

 

Bibliography

“What Is the Difference between Paracetamol and Ibuprofen? | Acetaminophen.” Sharecare, www.sharecare.com/health/acetaminophen/difference-between-paracetamol-and-ibuprofen.      

“OTC Pain Relief: Understanding NSAIDs.” WebMD, WebMD, www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/pain-relievers-nsaids#1.      

“Acetaminophen: Uses, Dosage & Side Effects.” Drugs.com, Drugs.com, 12 July 2017, www.drugs.com/acetaminophen.html.

“Here’s How Common Pain Relievers Actually Work in Your Body and Brain.” Business Insider, Business Insider, nordic.businessinsider.com/how-pain-relievers-tylenol-ibuprofen-work-2016-10/.      

based., Independent. Not-for-profit. Evidence. “Treating My Child’s Pain or Fever – Paracetamol or Ibuprofen?” NPS MedicineWise, www.nps.org.au/medical-info/consumer-info/treating-my-child-s-pain-or-fever-paracetamol-or-ibuprofen?c=what-is-the-difference-between-paracetamol-and-ibuprofen-for-treating-my-child-s-pain-or-fever-40e2977c.      

NHS Choices, NHS, beta.nhs.uk/medicines/ibuprofen-for-adults.