March 27, 2014

Peter Fenger
Experiment 14.2
The Effect of a Catalyst on the Decomposition of Hydrogen Peroxide
I. Purpose
Catalysts dramatically increase the rate of chemical reaction. They can make the activation energy for
a reaction get dramatically cut down. To find out how catalysts can have such an amazing effect on
reactions, our group performed the following experiment.
II. Hypothesis
If one uses a catalyst, then this catalyst will not be used up in the reaction it will just speed up the
reaction.
III.Materials/Supplies

100 mL beaker
Watch glass
graduated cylinder
measuring teaspoon
Hydrogen Peroxide
Baker's yeast (the kind used for baking bread)
Safety Goggles

IV. Procedure
1.
2.
3.
4.

Pour 25 mL (1/8 cup) of hydrogen peroxide into your beaker

Measure out of a teaspoon of yeast and pour it on top of the hydrogen peroxide.
Quickly cover the beaker with a watch glass
Grasp the beaker with your hand and place one finger over the watch glass to hold it in place
and make sure it does not fly off. Gently swirl the beaker.
5. Observe what happens.
6. Clean up your mess.
V. Observation and Data
1-2. Observing the clear liquid for a moment it would have appeared like there was not much
happening, but that is in fact not true. In fact, there is something happening. The hydrogen peroxide is
decomposing into water and oxygen according to the following equation: 2H2O2 (aq)----> 2H2O (l) +
O2 (g). So in fact the hydrogen peroxide is decomposing. The reason it doesn't look like it though is
because this reaction is happening incredibly slowly.
3-4. I saw many bubbles forming. In fact, bubbles formed so quickly that they rose up all the
way to the top of the beaker and would have overflowed the beaker if the watch glass was not on top of
the beaker

March 27, 2014

Peter Fenger
5-6. It appeared that the yeast acted as a catalyst and sped up the otherwise incredibly slow
decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. There was less peroxide it in the container after a few minutes of
bubbling! Although the yeast acted as a catalyst it didn't actually get used up in the reaction. There
was still of a teaspoon of yeast in the solution. Not a single reaction was used up to make the
reaction go fast! To prove this our group actually added more hydrogen peroxide to see if it would
keep bubbling and indeed it did with still what appeared to be the same amount of yeast!
VI. Conclusion
The decomposing of hydrogen peroxide was sped up by just simply adding a bit of yeast! This yeast
acted as a catalyst, and this yeast also sped up the reaction without being used up at all in the reaction!
Since this catalyst was not used up in the reaction, we could have dumped peroxide into the beaker all
day long and the peroxide would still be bubbling without any of the yeast being used up. So: if one
uses a catalyst, then this catalyst will not be used up in the reaction it will just speed up the reaction.
Since there was no yeast used up in this reaction my hypothesis is proven correct because a catalyst
will not be used up with the reaction it will just speed the reaction up. This also shows that the
activation energy is lowered as well. So if a chemist really wants to try and get an experiment done
without having to have a lot of activation energy or have to wait a long time for the reaction to happen
he can use a catalyst. Catalysts are like shortcuts on a long path. Amazing!