Measured Concentration Lab Report

A key component of the quantification of the protein concentration in the given samples was the generation of a standard curve. The data presented in Table 1 produced the graph in Figure 1 which was then used to calculate a line of best fit. The line of best fit yielded an equation y= 0.44976x which was in turn used to calculate unknown protein concentrations of given samples. The absorbances of the whole milk, cereal milk and muscle milk had been previously obtained and recorded via spectrophotometer (Table 2). These absorbances were substituted into the y- value of the equation and the concentrations, x-value, were solved for and recorded in Table 4. It is important to note that some of the samples required dilutions when their absorbance
There were a few discrepancies worth noting: The measured protein concentration for whole milk was roughly three times that of the printed label with a value of 100.2 mg/ml; cereal milk was twice that of its printed label with a value of of 84.7 mg/ml and muscle milk was found to have a higher printed label than the measure protein concentration from assay with a value of 35.8 mg/ml. It can be observed that measured values were significantly greater than printed label values (Table 5). These inconsistencies can be caused by multiple factors. Errors such as not adding enough dye reagent, incorrect dilution factors, and improper pipetting technique can account for human error throughout experiment. Additionally, to highlight the misrepresentation that is markedly noted in the printed label of Muscle Milk, it can be seen that manufacturers potentially doubled their claim of protein content from 35.8 mg/ml measured to 60.386 mg/ml printed. This can possibly be as a result of serving size manipulation in order to avoid product reformulation to adhere to FDA