How Cells Harvest Chemical Energy Lab Report
Respiration: How Cells Harvest Chemical Energy
1. A cell must work just to maintain its complex structure, for order is intrinsically unstable. Because of entropy (the second law of thermodynamics), which states that any enclosed system tends toward disorganization, cells must constantly use energy to keep themselves in order. If the cell was to stop using energy and let itself go then it would eventually get so disorganized that it wouldn't function properly.
2. With the help of enzymes, the cell systematically degrades complex organic molecules that are rich in potential energy to simpler waste products that have less energy. An example of this is gasoline; before you burn gasoline in the cylinder, it has a lot of energy and high potential
energy. But, when you burn the gasoline by the spark plug firing and igniting the gas, the leftover product has very low potential energy and is in a more unusable due to the fact that it is now carbon monoxide. The diagram on the next page illustrates this very well. The reactants are higher than the products indicating that they have a higher amount of potential energy. Then, after the reactants are used and you get to the products, there is less potential energy and you can see this because the products are lower than the reactants.
3. In its inevitable conversion from light to heat, a portion of the energy is temporarily trapped in the ordered structure of organic molecules, until cells use it for work. When gas is fired in the cylinder, it breaks down into many different forms of energy: light, heat, sound, and kinetic. Light: the light that is generated when the gasoline burns. Heat: the heat from the fire of the gasoline. Sound: the explosion from when the gasoline fires. Kinetic: the blast of the gasoline pushes against the piston and turns the crankshaft that turns the axle that turns the wheels that pushes the car along. The gasoline is no more but the energy that it once had has turned into other forms of energy.
4. Some of the energy taken out of chemical storage can be used to do work; the rest is dissipated heat. This is because of the second law of thermodynamics due to the fact that when you make an object do something, some of the energy is lost in heat because of friction. Heat is another form of energy and whatever you do gives off heat that can never be captured and reused at the time.
1. A cell must work just to maintain its complex structure, for order is intrinsically unstable. Because of entropy (the second law of thermodynamics), which states that any enclosed system tends toward disorganization, cells must constantly use energy to keep themselves in order. If the cell was to stop using energy and let itself go then it would eventually get so disorganized that it wouldn't function properly.
2. With the help of enzymes, the cell systematically degrades complex organic molecules that are rich in potential energy to simpler waste products that have less energy. An example of this is gasoline; before you burn gasoline in the cylinder, it has a lot of energy and high potential
energy. But, when you burn the gasoline by the spark plug firing and igniting the gas, the leftover product has very low potential energy and is in a more unusable due to the fact that it is now carbon monoxide. The diagram on the next page illustrates this very well. The reactants are higher than the products indicating that they have a higher amount of potential energy. Then, after the reactants are used and you get to the products, there is less potential energy and you can see this because the products are lower than the reactants.
3. In its inevitable conversion from light to heat, a portion of the energy is temporarily trapped in the ordered structure of organic molecules, until cells use it for work. When gas is fired in the cylinder, it breaks down into many different forms of energy: light, heat, sound, and kinetic. Light: the light that is generated when the gasoline burns. Heat: the heat from the fire of the gasoline. Sound: the explosion from when the gasoline fires. Kinetic: the blast of the gasoline pushes against the piston and turns the crankshaft that turns the axle that turns the wheels that pushes the car along. The gasoline is no more but the energy that it once had has turned into other forms of energy.
4. Some of the energy taken out of chemical storage can be used to do work; the rest is dissipated heat. This is because of the second law of thermodynamics due to the fact that when you make an object do something, some of the energy is lost in heat because of friction. Heat is another form of energy and whatever you do gives off heat that can never be captured and reused at the time.