How does the amount of the enzyme catalayse affect the speed of a chemical reaction

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Does the amount of an enzyme affect the speed of reaction and volume of product produced?

Oliver Flint

Does the amount of an enzyme affect the speed of reaction and volume of product produced?

What is an enzyme?

An enzyme is a protein strand specifically designed to break down a chemical, in this case called a substrate. Each enzyme will only break down one substrate. An enzyme breaks down a substrate, simply by its design. A basic way of representing this is a diagram like this It shows how a enzyme breaks down a substrate, but in a very basic way, real enzyme diagrams are far more complicated and look like a intermingled mesh of ribbons. The Diagram shows the breaking down of a substrate in the four stages of the reaction. The first stage of reaction is the substrate being drawn to the active site of the enzyme. ( the active site of an enzyme is the area where the reaction occurs) when the substrate is encapsulated in the enzyme, the forces that drew the substrate toward the enzyme continue to draw the particular components of the substrate away from each other. This is known as an enzyme product complex. After the products are separated then the products will leave the active site of the enzyme, leaving the enzyme ready to repeat the process as the enzyme only catalyses the reaction but is not part of the reaction.  Meaning that the enzyme can carry on and react with another molecule of substrate. Problems will occur when an enzyme is denatured this can happen because an enzyme is raised above a certain temperature this is because the substrates cannot bind to the active site anymore.

What Will I do?

In this experiment I will find out how the amount of an enzyme within a reaction will affect the reaction. In this experiment, I will be using hydrogen peroxide and the enzyme catalyse that can be found in places such as yeast, the liver and many plants. Catalyse is Identified by the enzyme symbol CAT, and is used to break down hydrogen peroxide into the retrospective atoms of oxygen and hydrogen. The chemical equation for this is 2H2O2 → 2H2O + O2   showing that the products are two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen.

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How will I complete my experiment

I will endeavour to find out how the amount of yeast affects the results of an experiment. Firstly I will explain how I will conduct the experiment. For this I will use five different pieces of equipment for the containment and measurement. I will use a test tube, two Retort Stands, a bung with a length of rubber pipe to carry the gas that will be released a basin and a measuring cylinder set up so that when the reaction occurs, It will occur in the test tube, and the resulting gases ...

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