The effect of substrate concentration on the activity of catalyse.

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AIM: The effect of substrate concentration on the activity of catalyse

PREDICTION:

I predict that, as substrate concentration increases, initially the rate of reaction will also increase. However after a certain point the catalyse stops having the ability of working any faster. Thereafter after this point the rate of reaction cannot increase any further.

Enzymes are protein molecules, which can be defined as biological catalysts. A catalyst is a molecule, which speeds up a chemical reaction, but remains unchanged at the end of the reaction. (Jones, 2000: 43)

There are two types of possible catalyst reactions that can occur:

* A reaction in which a larger molecule is broken down into a smaller molecule.

Fig 1.1: In this experiment I will be monitoring this reaction, which shows the break up a large molecule, hydrogen peroxide, to form smaller molecules, water and oxygen.

The graph below shows that as substrate concentration increases the rate of reaction also increase up till a certain point known as V-max. This is how I expect my graph to look like after the experiment.

Fig 1.2: (Williams, 2000: 70)

The human body produces this catalyse