Chemistry Of Glow Sticks Lab Report

We hypothesized that a medium pH buffer added to the hydrogen peroxide an peroxidase reaction would be the best condition for the enzyme activity due to it being the more neutral than the high, being basic, and low, being acidic, pH.

Peroxidase is an enzyme that breaks down hydrogen peroxide in our cells (Bansal et. al., 2016). Peroxidase is essential in life because hydrogen peroxide can cause damage to the cell. Hydrogen peroxide is the substrate to the peroxidase enzyme, where it binds to the active site and is broken down into water. In order to monitor the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide, the colorless dye guaiacol binds to the peroxidase and becomes oxidized as hydrogen peroxide is reduced to water, which then turns brown. Hydroxylamine is an inhibitor that has a similar structure to hydrogen peroxide. When hydroxylamine binds to the active site of peroxidase, it inhibits hydrogen peroxide from binding, thus preventing the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide (Lab Handout,

Have you ever wondered were led lights came from..? well I Daniel Mcfarland was born in Pennsylvania on February, 27 1869 and attended Lehigh University for college from 1884-1889. I studied electrical engineering, After experimenting with different sources, I started using glow discharges to produce light. In 1986 I had devised a glow discharge lighting system, creating an extension to the Geissler tube. The lamp utilized nitrogen and carbon dioxide as the luminous gas because they emitted a soft white light. My technique was the first commercially variable light source based on gas discharge instead of incandescence, and it's considered the predecessor to contemporary neon and fluorescent lighting.

The name of the enzyme used in this lab is called peroxidase. “In plants the enzyme is called peroxidase. A related enzyme named catalase performs the same function in animals” (Pearce, 2017). These enzymes breakdown hydrogen peroxide (which is a by – product of metabolism).

Chemiluminescence is the release of light without heat due to a chemical reaction. The release of light is from bonds that are broken, formed, or restructured2. A similar process, known as fluorescence, also produces an illumination. This chemical process on the other hand, gets its energy for light from the absorbance and release of light at different frequencies.

How does it work? Glow sticks produce light using a process known as chemiluminescence. Chemiluminescence is the production of light energy from a chemical reaction without the use of heat or a flame.

The luminal works with bounds to produce the glow, however the light emission decays slowly, glowing only for several minutes and its intensity may be greater than 1000-fold that of the unenhanced reactions between the chemicals and bounds. The iron functions as a catalyst in the light

The Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica (2014) state that it is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, and is usually presented, and used in this experiment, as an aqueous solution. According to Helmenstine (2014), an aqueous solution is a solution in which the solvent – component in the greatest quantity – is water. Hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizing agent; it oxidizes the melanin in hair removing the part of compounds that makes the color we see visible in hair (Compound Interest, 2014). In turn the natural color of keratin in hair, a pale yellow, is revealed as the cortical cells lose their

Introduction: Throughout the coarse of the lab experiment the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was done using catalase (an enzyme usually found in living organisms like yeast). The yeast acted as the substance that speeds up the decomposition of the reactants in H2O2 without changing its mass (not undergoing permanent change). Hydrogen peroxide is a complex compound that is commonly found in reaction that involve living organisms/cells, the function of the catalyst, otherwise known as yeast in this is experiment, with it catalase enzyme is to break down the compound H2O2 into smaller molecules of H2O (water) and O2 (oxygen). The enzyme catalase is built and shaped to allow the break down and decomposition of H2O2 to occur. Yeast

Peroxisomes are a membrane bound organelles which find in cytoplasm of eukaryotes. The main role of peroxisome is to break down biological compounds (such as fatty acids, foreign materials…) by transferring the hydrogen atoms from these compounds to molecular oxygen. As a result, peroxisomes generate hydrogen peroxides. Then, in order to protect the cell from the damage of hydrogen peroxides, they will be degraded by catalase, one of the most important enzymes of peroxisome, to water and oxygen. As a result, peroxisomes have many functions such as beta oxidation of fatty acids from a long chain of fatty acids to a small chain (have approximately 10 carbons). Peroxisomes also play an important role in the synthesis of bile acid because peroxisomes help shortening of the side chain and conjugation in that process.

It is an example of a heterogeneous catalyst. The oxide itself provides a particularly favourable environment to catalyse the decomposition of Hydrogen Peroxide (Decomposition of Hydrogen Peroxide by Various

Glowsticks have chemicals inside of them. When activated a glowstick’s glass vial is broken and the chemical inside combines with the chemicals on the outside of the glass vile. The combining of chemicals creates a reaction causing light without heat. A glowstick has two layers the first layer is the plastic tubing. Inside the tubing there is a mixture of diphenyl oxalate with dye. In the diphenyl oxalate and dye there is a long glass vial that holds hydrogen peroxide. When activated the glass vial will snap and the chemicals will react.

When you first look at the experiment you think it is a chemical reaction, but it is actually a physical reaction. The reasoning behind this is a process called nucleation. (Design, n.d.) Nucleation is a change of state; an example is solid to liquid. (Corporation, 2003) What causes this physical

The reaction within a glow stick is a primary example of chemiluminescence. These reactions, which typically involve luminal, have been generally well studied and its applications range from use in forensics for detecting traces of blood, in the pharmaceutical industry for quality control and in clinical services.

Thus, resulting in a brown coloured pigment, melanin. Phenolases which are enzymes found outside the cell wall come in contact with colorless phenols which are found inside the cell causing the brown color to appear. This chemical reaction uses an enzyme to speed up the process called polyphenol oxidase (PPO), a substrate from a family of chemicals called polyphenols, and oxygen. The products of this chemical reaction cause the brown color. The PPO and polyphenols are present in the plant cells and are released when the cells are cut or mashed. They react with the oxygen that comes from the air. (Enzymes are chemical substances that start or speed up a chemical reaction whereas a substrate is the chemical that the enzyme acts