Analyzing Alcohol Density: A Key to Customs and Border Control

Introduction

When beverages are being brought back into the United States from being out of the country, Customs and Border Patrol will most often have to know the alcohol content of these beverages that are being brought back. For a beverage to be considered non-alcoholic it should be below 0.5% of alcohol concentration. However, for the beverage to be considered a beer, it should contain an alcohol concentration between 0.5%-7%, wines should be 7%-24%, and lastly spirits should be greater than 24%. In the following lab there are unknown alcohols that need to be labeled as non-alcoholic, beer, wine, or spirit.

It is hypothesized that this can be achieved by finding the density of a percent of the beer, wine, and spirit and then find the density of each unknown alcohol and compare them. The densities of a known alcohol being compared to the density of an unknown alcohol, should allow for one to depict what type of alcohol it should be labeled.

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Methods and Materials

During this lab, one would need to know how to calculate density, as this is how the unknown alcohol will be figured out and labeled. The following equipment will be needed in the laboratory to complete the experiment:

• Distilled Water
• 70% Alcohol Solution
• 250 mL beaker
• 25 mL graduated cylinder
• 50 mL graduated cylinder
• 100 mL volumetric flask
• 500 mL volumetric flask
• Scale
• Unknown Alcohol Solution A
• Unknown Alcohol Solution B

The first step in completing the lab is to find the required volume of each alcohol percent in 100 mL of stock solution.

This can be done by using the calculation and to calculate the one would multiply and then divide by and this will give the amount of alcohol volume needed. After finding the volume, it is then time to start the lab and find the densities of each alcohol percentage from the volume that has been found. First a 250 mL beaker would be filled with distilled water and then would be set to the side. Then a 100 mL or 500 mL volumetric flask would be set on the set and the weight of the flask itself would be zeroed out.

Next, the amount of the 70% stock alcohol that was found prior to beginning the lab, will be added to a 25 mL or 50 mL graduated cylinder and then poured into the volumetric flask on the scale. Then this solution will be diluted with 100 mL of distilled water and the final mass should then be recorded. After recording the mass one should then calculate the density of the solution. The above steps should be completed for each of the three types of alcohol using their correct required volume that was found for each.

After the densities of each alcohol has been found, it is now time to start the experiment of finding what type of alcohol the unknown solutions are or if they are even alcohol. To complete this task, take the empty 250 mL beaker and put on the scale and zero out the weight. Then one would need to add the ‘Unknown A’ solution to the beaker on the scale, and then its mass would need to be recorded. After recording the mass calculate the density of the unknown solution, this can be done by using a density calculator or by doing it by hand. The above sets should be followed and completed for ‘Unknown B’ solution just as they were for the ‘Unknown A’ solution.

Results

The experiment yielded the following volumes required to achieve the target alcohol percentages from a 70% stock solution:

Upon calculating the densities for each alcohol solution, the results were as follows:

Comparing these densities to those of unknown solutions 'A' and 'B', which were found to be 0.9794 g/cm³ and 0.9183 g/cm³ respectively, enabled the classification of 'Unknown A' as wine and 'Unknown B' as a non-alcoholic beverage.

Discussion

After completing the steps to find the density of the unknown solutions it was found that the density of ‘Unknown A’ solution was 0.9794 g/c and ‘Unknown B’ solutions density was 0.9183 g/c. Now by taking the densities that were found for unknown solutions A and B and comparing them to the densities that were found for each of the alcohol solutions, the unknown solutions should be able to be identified. The following chart will always be useful in the identifications of the solutions.

When comparing the densities and looking at the chart above, the ‘Unknown A’ solution was identified as a wine. The density of the solution falls between the densities of 7% and 24% of alcohol concentration, therefore it is believed that it is a wine. For the ‘Unknown B’ solution it was concluded that it was a nonalcoholic beverage because its density was below the 0.5% alcohol concentration. It was hypothesized that by calculating the density for each alcohol concentration and then comparing the density of each unknown solution to those of the known alcohol, one would be able to identify the unknown solutions. From the results above, the hypothesizes that was made has been supported and allowed the unknown solutions to be labeled.

One should be excited about these findings because they learned how to compute densities of solutions that are unknown volumetrically and gravimetrically. Analyzing the information and keeping it organized was a difficult task but being able to complete this lab should be exciting because now one has learned about percent alcohol concentration and how to calculate densities of unknown solutions. If one calculated any of the densities wrong and miscalculated any part of the lab experiment, the whole experiment could be thrown off and the results that are gathered at the end will most likely not be correct. This lab is a very good learning experience and allows one to learn more about densities and alcohol density problems.

Reference

1. OpenStax, Chemistry. OpenStax CNX. Retrieved June 24, 2020, from http://cnx.org/contents/85abf193-2bd2-4908-8563-90b8a7ac8df6@12.1.