What Effect Does The Temperature Of Water Used Have On The Rate Of Coagulation Of Milk And Rennin Solution?

Authors Avatar

What Effect Does The Temperature Of Water Used Have On The Rate Of Coagulation Of Milk And Rennin Solution?

    In this investigation I am going to mix a certain amount of rennin solution and milk, and record how long it takes the mixture to coagulate. I will repeat this procedure of mixing the rennin and milk when they are heated to 5 different temperatures and will leave them to coagulate in a water bath so as to maintain their temperature. I will repeat each temperature 3 times, calculate an average time of coagulation for each temperature and I will hopefully find a correlation between the temperature of the mixture and the time taken to coagulate and therefore come to a conclusion to my title question. I will use my existing scientific knowledge to make a prediction and to help me understand and explain the outcome once I have gained my results.

    Enzymes are  biological catalysts. They speed up a reaction without affecting the nature of the end products. Enzymes are specific and an enzyme will only work with a particular substrate. Rennin is an enzyme. So in the context of this experiment the enzyme, rennin, is speeding up the reaction of coagulation when the enzyme solution is mixed with milk. There are many factors which can effect the rate at which an enzyme works. In this experiment I am testing the effect that change in temperature has on the rate of reaction.

Diagram to show the process of enzyme reaction

    When discussing the effect of temperature on enzymes, there are two main points to consider – the collision theory and denaturing of the active site.

The Collision Theory

    When the enzyme solution is at a low temperature, the molecules are moving relatively slowly. This means that there will be few collisions between the enzyme and the substrate and therefore few enzyme-substrate complexes will be formed, so the reaction rate will be fairly slow. As the temperature rises there is more kinetic energy so the enzyme and substrate molecules will be moving faster. This results in there being more collisions between substrate molecules and the enzymes active sites and therefore more enzyme-substrate complexes are formed. This means the substrate molecules are broken up quicker and the reaction rate is therefore faster. This increase of  reaction rate continues with the increase of temperature until the enzyme reaches it’s optimum temperature and from then on the active site will begin to denature and the rate of reaction will slow.

Join now!

Denaturing of the active site

    Enzymes are proteins. Proteins are made up of a series of amino acids forming a polypeptide chain. The order of these amino acids is called the primary structure of the protein. The secondary structure of the protein is the regular coiling or folding of the polypeptide chain forming an alpha helix or a beta pleated sheet. However the important thing to consider when exercising this investigation is the protein’s tertiary structure.

    The tertiary structure of a protein results from 3D coiling of the already folded chain of amino ...

This is a preview of the whole essay