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Hydrogen Peroxidase Lab Report

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Examination of Temperature Change in Yeast Solution with the Addition of Hydrogen Peroxidase

Dr. Shazia Ahmed
Kushal Bhatt

by April Wyatt

(Biology 1111.03)

Friday Sept 25, 2015

Introduction:
Hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizing agent which affects melanin production within the body (the chemical which controls the color of human hair and the pigment of human skin). Hydrogen peroxide (in very small percentages) is often found in products such as hair bleach and teeth whitening kits because of this property. (World Health Organization, 1997) Hydrogen peroxide is considered a toxin by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (US National Library of Medicine, accessed 2015) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. (Agency for …show more content…

For the baseline experiment the hypothesis stated that there would be a positive exothermic reaction when the hydrogen peroxide was introduced to the yeast. There was a total increase in temperature for the baseline experiment was 1.9 degrees Celsius. The result shows that the hypothesis holds up and was indeed correct. This is because when the hydrogen peroxide was introduced to the hydrogen peroxidase (yeast) the enzyme bonded to the hydrogen peroxide and quickly decomposed the hydrogen peroxide. This resulted in the formation of water, oxygen gas, and energy. In this case the energy was released as heat and therefore we measured the change in temperature over the first 90 seconds of introduction. Since this was the baseline experiment, these will be the results I compare all other reactions to. In the 2x substrate experiment the hypothesis stated that there should be a positive exothermic reaction approximately twice the magnitude of the baseline experiment. The total change in temperature of the baseline experiment was 1.9 degrees Celsius and the total change in temperature for the 2x substrate experiment was 4.7 degrees Celsius. The reaction was positive and exothermic, however was much greater than twice the magnitude of the baseline experiment reaction. The expectation was that because there was twice the substrate to be consumed by the hydrogen peroxidase that it would result in approximately twice the magnitude of energy released in heat. The basis of the hypothesis was correct that there would be an overall increase in the magnitude of reaction but there was no way to tell the exact rate of reaction so the hypothesis can neither be confirmed nor denied with the experiments conducted. In the half enzyme experiment the hypothesis stated that there would be a positive exothermic reaction approximately half the magnitude of

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