Question

Three liquids are given to you. One is hydrochloric acid, another is sodium hydroxide and the third is a sugar solution. How will you identify them? You have only a turmeric paper indicator.

Answer 1

Turmeric indicator is a natural indicator used to identify whether the solution is acidic, basic or neutral. To differentiate acidic or neutral solutions add little amount of base in both the solutions.

Complete answer:
Definition of Ph: It is a figure expressing the acidity or alkalinity of a solution on a logarithmic scale on which 7 is neutral, lower than 7 values are more acid and if ph is more than 7 than it is alkaline.
Turmeric paper indicator turns yellow in color when the solution is acidic, basic or neutral.
Turmeric indicator turns red in color when the solution is basic in nature.
Steps to be followed for finding solutions:

First of all place a drop of each liquid on the turmeric indicator. The solution which turns turmeric indicator red in color is basic in nature that implies that it is a sodium hydroxide solution.
But the other two solutions will show yellow color as they are acidic or neutral in nature. To differentiate both the solutions add sodium hydroxide solution in the other two solutions.
After that put these mixtures on a turmeric indicator. The mixture that changes the color of indicator red contains neutral sugar solution. While the mixture which does not show any color change in indicator contains hydrochloric acid. It is because of the fact that when acid and base react they become neutral so an addition of sodium hydroxide base in hydrochloric acid becomes neutral so it will give red color only. And in case of sugar solution it becomes basic after adding sodium hydroxide so the color will become yellow.
In this way you can detect all three different kinds of solutions with turmeric indicators.

Note: We can also use litmus test to detect acidic, basic or neutral solutions. To differentiate acidic or neutral solutions add a little amount of base in both the solutions to make neutral one basic and acidic one into neutral so that both of them are different colors with turmeric solution.