Prediction
I predict that as the concentration of the catalase is increases, the more oxygen is produced, so the rate of the reaction will get quicker. This is because there will be more catalase activity so there are more active sites for the reactions. This will mean there will be more successful collisions between the active site of the enzyme and the substrate.
Apparatus
Two 10cm3 measuring cylinder
Hydrogen Peroxide (1M)
Water bath
A potato
Delivery tube
Bung
Conical flask
A razor blade
A stopwatch
A ruler
Cork borer
Method
1. First of all I connected the delivery tube to the conical flask then I filled a tub full of water and placed the delivery tube in the water.
2. Then I measured out the 1M of Hydrogen peroxide and placed this into the conical flask.
3. Then I used a cork borer to get a long piece of potato out of the potato. I cut this up first into 1cm then 2cm, 3cm and 4cm. I also measured each of these after that to find the surface area for each.
4. Then I placed the 1cm piece of potato into the flask, closed the top of it with the bung and started the stopwatch. I did this with each different piece of potato.
5. When the there was enough oxygen to get to 6 ml in the measuring cylinder I stopped the stopwatch and recorded the time down.
Analysis
My prediction was correct, as the concentration of catalase was increased the rate of reaction was quicker meaning more oxygen was produced. This is because the higher the enzyme concentration so the bigger the potato the more active sites there are. So there for there will be more successful collisions take place between the enzyme and the substrate.
Evaluation
My experiment worked quite well in the end but if I were to do it again I would change a few things to make my results more accurate. Firstly I would do the get more readings by using more potato instead of stopping at 4cm because I hadn’t reached the optimum rate of catalase activity. Also I would use the same amount of potato twice to see if there really is the same amount of catalase in each cell.
