Buffers in Context: Baby Wipes As a Buffer System

An understanding of buffers is important in a variety of chemistry subdisciplines, with relevant applications to the life sciences and health profession-related fields. Here, we describe the development and implementation of a lab that involves creating a buffer solution using baby wipes and deionized water. The goal of this lab was to emphasize a conceptual understanding of buffers within a context that would be interesting and relevant for students in a nonmajors general chemistry course, a population composed primarily of health/human science and agricultural science majors. The prelaboratory assignment and postlaboratory discussion focus on modeling by making connections between laboratory observations and the particulate-level view of a buffer. Overall, the experiment seeks to prompt students to think beyond the macroscopic view that buffers resist changes in pH and guide students toward thinking mechanistically about how a buffer resists changes in pH, a process that depends largely on the buffer components and their respective amounts.