Candy Electrophoresis Lab

We did an experiment of candy dyes. We used Mike and Ikes and extracted the dye from them. Then we tested for what types of dyes they have. Two colors seemed to be have more diverse dyes than the others. The green dye is slightly smaller than the rest of the bands. The light red dye is slightly purple. These dyes could be made of different substances than the reference and experimental dyes. Carminic acid and betanin would most likely be as far out as the reference and experimental dyes that are red since they’re similar in color. Citrus red most likely would be as far out as the experimental light red dye since they’re similar in color. And fast green would be as far out as the experimental green since they’re similar in color.

Products that contains food dye include dog food, chips, like cheetos, doritos, and lays, juice, like apple, orange, and grape, and cereal, like fruit loops, lucky charms, and cinnamon toast crunch. This is most likely done so it looks more natural or colorful to people, grabbing their attention, and raising the chance of them buying the product, raising profit.

Two factors that control how far the food dye went in the gel was the size of the food dye molecules and the amount of charge that went through the electric current, which causes the dye to move since they have a negative charge and will travel towards the positive charge, which is on the other side of the gel. The electrophoresis system separates the molecules by size because the bigger the molecule, the slower it will move, and vis versa, in the electric current, causing the dyes to be separated by the size of their molecules. This process is often done with DNA though. If four DNA molecules with the weight of 600, 1000, 2000, 5000 daltons were put in the gel and traveled by the electric current, 600 would be the farthest out, 100 would be the second farthest, 2000 would be the second closest, and 5000 would be the closest to the negative side of the electric current.