Product Summary
PASCO’s new Polarimeter has both Bluetooth® and USB connectivity, so it works on your iPad®, Chromebook™, tablets, and computers. It is ideal for introductory Organic and Biochemistry experiments with chiral compounds.
Polarimeters pass plane polarized light through a sample, which contains a chiral compound, and then through an analyzer and a detector. The degree of optical rotation of the plane polarized light is based on the concentration of sample present.
Applications
- Determine the concentration of a sugar solution based on the optical rotation of plane polarized light.
- Explore the simple sugar families and determine which of each students obtain as unknowns.
- Differentiate between common chiral and non-chiral compounds.
- Calculate a racemic mixture's purity.
How It Works
Orange light filters light source to make an orange plane polarized light. This polarized light interacts with chiral atoms (atoms not superimposable on their mirror images) causing the plane in which the electric vector vibrates rotates. Students just rotate the second polarized filter until you find where the light is now maximized (oriented to the newly twisted plane of polarization of light) to see how much it has changed from when it left the first filter. The amount of turning is dependent on the concentration (and the length which is fixed) of the compound of interest. The amount the plane of oscillation turns per gram /ml of solution is known as the specific rotation and given the symbol α . Compounds this works well to study include simple sugars, sucrose, several amino acids, and any other substituted hydrocarbons that have a stereo center.
Values obtained can determine concentration of optically active compounds, changes from known rotation can determine mixtures with it's racemic mirrored compound. Sugar's cyclic structure has two optically active conformations. Finding it's specific rotation allows you to determine the concentration of each form.
What's Included
Product Specifications
| Connectivity | Bluetooth and USB |
| LED light source | 589 nm |
| Optical Rotation Accuracy | ±0.09º |
| Cell length (horizontal) | 101 mm ± 0.8mm |
| Cell volume | 12 ml |
Battery & Logging
| Stored Data Points Memory (Logging) 1 | Not Supported |
| Battery - Connected (Data Collection Mode) 2 | >11 hr |
| Battery - Logging (Data Logging Mode) 3 | Not Supported |
| Battery Type | LiPo |
1 Minimum # of data points with all measurements enabled, actual results depend on enabled measurements.
2 Continuous use in a connected state until battery failure, actual results will depend on sample rate, active measurements, and battery condition.
3 Logging until battery failure, actual results will depend on sample rate, active measurements, and battery condition.
* Normal classroom use is the sensor in active use for 20min/lab for 120 lab periods/yr.
Data Collection Software
This product requires PASCO software for data collection and analysis. We recommend the following option(s). For more information on which is right for your classroom, see our Software Comparison: SPARKvue vs. Capstone »
Connectivity Options
This product can connect directly to your computer or device with the following technologies. No Interface required.
- Bluetooth Classic
- Universal Serial Bus (USB)
Lab Activities & Experiments
Experiment Library
Perform the following experiments and more with the Polarimeter.
Visit PASCO's Experiment Library to view more activities.
College / Chemistry
Students use a polarimeter and Biot's law to determine the unknown concentration of several sucrose solutions.
College / Chemistry
Students use a polarimeter to determine the unknown concentration of a sucrose solution.
College / Chemistry
Students use a polarimeter determine reaction order and rate constant of an acid-catalyzed sucrose hydrolysis reaction and an invertase-catalyzed reaction.
College / Chemistry
Students use a polarimeter to determine the α- and β-anomer concentrations of a D-glucose solution at equilibrium, and calculate the equilibrium constant.
College / Chemistry
Students use a polarimeter to experimentally determine the specific rotation of the sucrose molecule.
