By Tabitha Melendez, Morgan Stubbs

Faculty Mentor: Sarah Smith

Abstract

Coconut Berry Redbull is a popular flavor of energy drink that is chosen for its high concentration of caffeine per 12-16 ounce serving. To determine caffeine concentration, two methods of analysis were employed. Fluorescence spectroscopy utilizes a quenching technique in which an aspirin sample was quenches using known concentrations of caffeine. The gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method performs an analysis via internal standard, producing chromatograms that identify other compounds within the sample. The fluorescence method yielded a 97.6% error. It was found that GC-MS is a satisfactory method to quantify caffeine concentration within Coconut Berry Redbull, in addition to providing other valuable information regarding the
composition of this beverage.