Does the increase in surface area of a product affect the overall rate of oxygen production/catalase reaction.

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Does the increase in surface area of a product affect the overall rate of oxygen production/catalase reaction.

Aim: To see if an increase to the surface area effects the overall rate of catalase absorption.

Prediction: I predict that as the surface area increases so will the overall rate of oxygen production.  This is because when a substrate (Hydrogen Peroxide) reacts with an enzyme (catalase) it is changed into a product (oxygen) (See diagram 2).

The equation for this is hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)= oxygen + water (O+ H2O).  An enzyme works when the surface are of an enzyme is cut. The substrate enters the enzyme through the cut cell (See diagram 1).  If an enzyme has a larger surface more of an enzyme is released therefore increasing the rate of oxygen production.

Fair test: To make the experiment fair and useable in the future we needed to make sure we obtained valid results. There are some factors which will affect the results, these are:

Temperature; we made sure that the temperature wasn’t effected by completing the experiment over the course of one day at room temperature. An enzyme works at an optimum temperature of 37ºc (body temperature), if an enzyme is heated too more than 40ºc it becomes denatured (killed), and if it is cooled to less than 37ºc it works slower and therefore becomes less effective. At the optimum temperature the molecules of he enzyme move quickly which therefore leads to more hydrogen peroxide and catalase joining (reacting).

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Same potato; in the practical we tried to use the same potato, because each potato has a different amount of catalase inside it. This depends on the age of the potato for example: a two-week-old potato could have less than half the amount of catalase than a new potato.

Same people; we used the same people to read results, meniscuses, to syringe the hydrogen peroxide, too cut the potato, and to time.  We did this because then each time the margin of human error would be the same each time, therefore making the results more accurate.

Same equipment; for the ...

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