Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Determination Of Caffeine Content In Decaffeinated Blackbird Coffee, Logan Chalmers

The Corinthian

Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant that increases one’s metabolic rate, alertness and motivation upon consumption. Consumer curiosity sparked the investigation of the caffeine content found in locally brewed Blackbird Coffee. A procedure involving liquid-liquid extraction with dichloromethane was developed to determine the amount of caffeine in store-bought, brewed caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. The caffeine amounts recovered were reproducible, thus the method was proved reliable and was implemented for the extraction of caffeine from Blackbird decaffeinated coffee. A single serving was determined to contain an average of 39 ± 12 mg of caffeine which is approximately 20% of the …