Catalase Lab Report

It is hypothesized that as the substrate concentration increases, the rate of reaction will increase respectively, until the enzyme reaches its optimum point of saturation, after which any increase in the substrate concentration will no longer affect the rate of reaction. The independent variable in this investigation is the varying concentrations of the substrate (Hydrogen Peroxide: 1%, 3%, 5% and 6%)The dependent variable was the rate of enzyme catalase activity, which was measured by the volume of froth produced after one minute.The concentration and volume of liver extract (source of catalase) used was kept constant at 10ml per solution. This factor was kept constant, as the concentration of the enzyme affects the rate of reaction; higher enzyme concentrations increase the amount of active sites available for the substrate to bind to, thus increasing the reaction rate. The
The point enzyme saturation, after which any increase of in the substrate concentration will no longer effect enzyme activity could also be determined.

Improvement 2: The source of catalase (liver extract) could have been stored at room temperature, instead of in an iced solution. As a result of being exposed to cool temperature, the catalase wasn’t at its optimum temperature, which would have drastically reduced the rate of reactions. Therefore, the expected results were not able to be obtained under the duration of 1min.
The hypothesis predicted that as substrate concentrations increased, the rate of reaction will subsequently increase. However, the results obtained refuted this theory, as when substrate concentrations increased from 1% to 6%, the rate of reaction decreased from 34ml/min to 16ml/min. Due to the decreasing trend of data, a point of optimum enzyme saturation was unable to be