Enzyme Investigation

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Enzyme Investigation

Preliminary Work


I chose to use the different apparatus in my experiment from preliminary work I have done. I could have used liver instead of potato but liver reacts too much with the hydrogen peroxide and too quickly to be able to record the results with any accuracy. This is because it has too many catalaes enzymes, so the reactions take place a lot quicker. There was a choice between counting the number of bubbles released and the volume of oxygen released. I chose volume because it is more accurate as bubbles can easily vary in size and it is easier to record the volume than counting bubbles.
        5g of the potato and 20cm
3 of the Hydrogen Peroxide should be enough for this experiment to produce easily read results, which will also be accurate enough for me to see clearly which is best for reactions.

Hypothesis

I am trying to find out if Hydrogen peroxide will breakdown to oxygen and water in the presence of Catalase. The reaction will increase with increasing substrate concentration.

Structure and Function of an   Enzyme

Enzymes are large proteins that speed up chemical reactions. In their globular structure, one or more polypeptide chains twist and fold, bringing together a small number of amino acids to form the active site, or the location on the enzyme where the substrate binds and the reaction takes place.

Enzyme and substrate fail to bind if their shapes do not match exactly. This ensures that the enzyme does not participate in the wrong reaction. The enzyme itself is unaffected by the reaction. When the products have been released, the enzyme is ready to bind with a new substrate.

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Prediction

I would expect from this reaction between the hydrogen peroxide and the catalase enzyme in the potato that the quickest and most reacted concentration of hydrogen peroxide would be the 50%. I would then expect 40%, 30%, and 20% and then the slowest to react would be the 10% concentration.
        I would expect 50% to react quickest because it has the most Hydrogen Peroxide molecules in it. This means that a reaction is more likely to take place, in a shorter time, making the rate of reaction quicker. The more reactions that take place increases ...

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