Spangler Science: Chemistry experiment visualizes heartburn and antacids

sometimes great food and heartburn go hand in hand that's why many people rely on something like malcolm magnesia to settle their stomachs but have you ever wondered how antacids work well there's some really cool colorful chemistry you can use to explain the science of malcolm magnesia take a look uh here's our little laboratory two containers just filled with water and an indicator now an indicator is an acid-base indicator that will change color if something's an acid or a base you might have

seen somebody use something like this when they're testing the ph of a pool or maybe a hot tub in this case you can see the little green that's inside here with just water now you could make your own and you could use red cabbage for example that changes color in the same way well watch what happens ready this is just water so it's neutral let's add some vinegar this would make it acidic let's see what that looks like oh look at that see how it turns red so it's red when it's an acid now we're

going to use this as a base this is ammonia and let's take a look at what we get well with this indicator here look at that bluish purple now for the base so you can kind of see the differences they're acids and bases that's going to be important now when we're testing the milk of magnesia so let's pretend like this flask here that has that the spinning rod in the bottom this is our stomach so i'm going to add some of the milk of magnesia here this is called magnesium hydroxide so there it is an

d so now let's take a look with our indicator and see if it's an acid or a base oh you could already tell right away look at that it's on the basic side which is absolutely what it should be so let's say that you had that great meal and you're starting to feel a little of that heartburn or the indigestion it means that your stomach excreted a little too much hydrochloric acid well let's take a look at what that looks like look at this it starts to turn oh look at that that red and wait wait wait

and it's back that's the science of an antacid look at what it does this milk of magnesia buffers the stomach and takes something that could be acidic and neutralizes it and brings it back so that you don't have that excess acid in your stomach and a little too much of that heartburn along the way well ultimately it will stop once you've used up all of that milk of magnesia or the magnesium hydroxide but this is a great way to be able to see some of the colorful chemistry that's happening in yo

ur stomach i'm steve spangler and that's your colorful science minute