An experiment to show the varying rate of reactions when different concentrations of starch are broken down by the enzyme, amylase.

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An experiment to show the varying rate of reactions when different concentrations of starch are broken down by the enzyme, amylase.

Planning:

Background information:

Enzymes are biological catalysts that help break down large molecules into smaller molecules so that they are soluble without getting used up themselves. For this investigation I am going to investigate the effect of the concentration of a substrate, in this case starch, on the time taken for the enzyme amylase, to fully breakdown the substrate. The reason why these have to be used together is because each enzyme is designed specifically to break down only one substrate as each enzyme is made of a protein that causes it to be a specific shape, in this case the enzyme amylase can only break down starch to maltose. This is called the lock and key theory.

Concentration affects the rate of reaction in substances. If the concentration is high, there is more of chance of successful collision; however this also means it will take longer to react as there is more to break down. If there is a low concentration, there is less chance of successful collision, but the particles that do collide