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Rate of Reaction
No Reaction
Fast reaction
Small bubbles
Fizzing
Potato
Slight fizziness
Slower reaction
Less bubbling
Foams very quickly
Large bubbles
Large air pockets
Liver
Ground Liver
Reacted Hydrogen
Peroxide and Fresh Liver:
No reaction
Slower reaction
Heated Liver
No reaction
Cooled Liver
Other Observations
The three glass beads do
not contain an enzyme
If more hydrogen
peroxide is added, more
bubbles produced and the
fizzing continues.
Tiny air pockets formed
Filled half of the test tube
The liquid formed was
water and oxygen
Fastest and largest
reaction for the entire
experiment
Liver in HCl
Small bubbles
No reaction
Trial 1:
The three glass beads did not cause a reaction with hydrogen peroxide because
there was no enzyme. The substrate, hydrogen peroxide, did not have anything to
catalyze it because the glass beads do not contain an enzyme or a catalyst. Even
though hydrogen peroxide was in the test tube with the beads, a reaction would be
too slow to occur without an enzyme present.
Trial 2:
Manganese dioxide is a catalyst because it speeds up the rate of a reaction, lowers
activation energy, and does not get used up in a reaction. However, manganese
dioxide is not an enzyme because enzymes are only produced in living organisms.
Enzymes are proteins that are created in the body of living things. When more
hydrogen peroxide is added to the reaction after it occurred, more bubbles were
created because another reaction occurred. This happened because the substrate
was fully used up by the catalyst causing the first reaction to stop. After the first set
of reactants was catalyzed, the manganese dioxide stopped reacting because all of
the substrates had been changed into water and oxygen. This allowed the
manganese dioxide to be able to catalyze more substrates after the original reaction
was completed. Due to the fact that catalysts are never used up in a reaction, adding
more substrate causes the reaction to continue and the catalyst to keep functioning
and making more products.
Trial 3:
A potato does contain an enzyme because a small reaction did occur when hydrogen
peroxide was added with it in a test tube. This reaction occurred slowly because the
potatos enzyme is not as efficient as the enzyme in manganese dioxide or liver. This
could be due to competitive inhibitors that cause fewer substrates to be catalyzed at
a time. There also may have be fewer enzymes in a potato than in liver that would
cause it to take longer to catalyze the same amount of hydrogen peroxide. The
potato catalyzed the hydrogen peroxide and created oxygen and water.
Trial 4:
Liver does contain an enzyme because the products oxygen and water were
produced. The hydrogen peroxide was catalyzed by the enzyme in the liver, so at the
end of the reaction, the only substances left in the test tube were liver, water, and
oxygen. The hydrogen peroxide was completely converted to the products because
the enzyme in liver was able to speed up the reaction and decrease the activation
energy to start the reaction. The chemical equation for this reaction is:
the speed of the reaction was decreased and there were fewer products. Cold
temperature does denature proteins if it is low enough to truly affect the bonds.
Trial 9:
There was no reaction because the acid caused the protein to denature. Liver had a
pH of seven and the hydrochloric acid had a pH of two. The highly acidic liquid
denatured the enzyme causing it not to function. None of the substrates were
catalyzed thus causing no new products to be formed. No bubbles appeared in the
test tube so no oxygen was created. Again, the tertiary, quaternary, and secondary
structures were all affected and unfolded. This was because the hydrogen bonds
were disturbed by the addition of H+ ions from the acid. These ions caused the
bonds to break and thus the protein unfolded. The primary structure was still intact
because the peptide bonds were not affected by increased acidity.