The diverse interior of chestnuts
The seeds of the horse chestnut are ideal for scientific experiments, as medicine or for washing clothes. Because they contain a whole bunch of organic compounds that fulfill a wide variety of functions.
At first glance, chestnuts are primarily used by children to make figurines and animal figures. However, if you take a closer look at the seeds of the horse chestnut, many interesting questions arise: Why does a road with busted, burst chestnut seeds foam when it rains? How can the seeds be used for baking? What substances does horse chestnut extract, which served as the basis for the development of whiteners, contain? You can find the answers if you take a closer look at the diverse ingredients.
The horse chestnut seeds consist largely of starch and sugar. While the detection of sugar is only possible with laboratory chemicals, the starch can be made visible with an everyday product containing iodine. To do this, cut open one of the seeds and drip a brown Betaisodona solution diluted with water (five to ten drops in five milliliters of water) from the pharmacy onto the cut surface. The blue color that can be observed is due to the fact that iodide ions from the solution are stored in the spiral-shaped amylose molecules, which make up a main component of starch, forming polyiodide ions …
