Catalase Activity

Effect of substrate concentration on enzyme activity

Exploration:

Introduction:

Catalase is an enzyme normally found in many plant and animal tissues. Its purpose is to destroy toxic substances like hydrogen peroxide which is a byproduct in many cellular reactions. In this lab, we will use a catalase solution from yeast and determine the effect of substrate concentration on the action of this enzyme. The substrate of the enzyme will be different concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Catalase works by the following mechanism :

2 H2O2 ------------------> 2 H2O+ O2

Hypothesis:

The hypothesis for this experiment is that the foam of O2 produced from the reaction between hydrogen peroxide and catalase will increase in height when the concentration of hydrogen peroxide increases.

Independent variable:

The variable that was changed during the experiment was hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).

Dependent variable:

The dependent variable in the experiment was the amount of foam measured.

Controlled variables:

Variables How it was controlled

Temperature The experiment was performed at room temperature and the temperature of the solutions were the same as lukewarm tap water was used.

Test tubes The size of the test

The graph shows that the increase between 1.5 % and 3.0 % concentrations is smaller than the increase between the 0.8 % and 1.5 % concentrations. This shows that the rate catalase works at will eventually reach a level where it is at its maximum capacity. Therefore, the hypothesis is somewhat proven correct as the height of the foam did increase when the concentration of H2O2 was also increased. However, the recorded data showed that the rate catalase works at will reach a certain point. This means that the height of the foam will reach a certain maximum point and not continuously