Lab Equipment: Test Your Knowledge of Refractometers

An essential piece of lab equipment is the refractometer, which measures sugar content in liquids. Chances are, around the holidays your intake of sugar increases. From pumpkin or pecan pie to holiday cookies to chocolate, the availability of sweet treats seems neverending. How much sugar is actually in that cranberry sauce? Is there sugar in the gravy that spills over those mashed potatoes? How about the yams?

Low-Cost Brix Refractometer with ATC, 0 to 32%

Refractometers use Brix degrees to indicate the amount of sucrose in the solution. How much do you know about the various types of refractometers? Take the Tech Challenge below!

Tech Challenge!

Candice at Candy Coats has decided to start a quality control laboratory to standardize and monitor their candy products for consistency as they expand and produce more. She would like to test a sample of each finished batch of soft and hard candies for the refractive index (RI) in order to measure of the sugar content specifically. The RI is expected to be relatively high, around 1.5-1.7, and they have requested a high accuracy solution.

Which of the following would be the ideal instrument?

A. Handheld RI refractometer (02940-09).

B. An Abbe refractometer (02940-04).

C. A digital RI pocket refractometer (81030-00).

D. A bench-top programmable digital refractometer (81100-30).