Enzyme Concentration Lab Report

Most people choose hydrogen peroxide over rubbing alcohol to clean a wound since hydrogen peroxide doesn’t burn. However, when hydrogen peroxide is treated on deeper wounds into the flesh, it can pose numerous problems to cellular health. When hydrogen peroxide is used correctly to clean wounds, it becomes an oxidizer and can be used as a disinfectant to prevent infections. However when used incorrectly, hydrogen peroxide can cause oxidative stress on cells. This essentially means that there is an imbalance on molecules containing oxygen and the cell cannot detoxify the products. This creates free radicals such as hydroxyl radical that will damage all components of the cell, ultimately killing it (Tucker, 2012). However, humans actually produce
This can be observed by looking at the values in table 2.0 and the trendline on grade 2.0. The trendline displays a positive slope, thus dictating a positive relationship between catalase concentration and the rate of reaction. This means when catalase concentration increases, the rate of reaction also increases. In other words, at 20% catalase concentration, the rate of reaction was only 4.220 mm/s while at 100% catalase concentration, the rate of reaction was 7.704 mm/s. This proves the positive correlation between catalase concentration and the rate of reaction. This occurs because as the enzyme concentration increases, there are more enzymes available to catalyze substrates. More enzymes means more reactions can take place at a time, thus a faster rate of reaction. Overall, based on the results of table 2.0 and graph 2.0, it is prevalent that there is a positive correlation between the concentration of enzymes and the rate of
If they are placed in an environment that is too acidic or basic, the secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure of the protein will be damaged, and thus denature. The optimum pH level for catalase is 7, thus it will denature in any environment that is too acidic or too basic (Introduction to Enzymes, n.d). When catalase denatures, it can no longer function thus it will decrease the rate of catalase activity dramatically. The presence of NaCl, or salt, will also affect the rate of catalase activity. A salt concentration that is too high or too low will ultimately denature the enzyme, thus permanently stopping the enzyme from working (What Factors Affect the Activities of Catalase? n.d). As a result, the rate of reaction will also decrease significantly. However, the results from the copper II sulphate reaction will not be as dramatic as changing the pH level or increasing salt