Peroxidase Enzyme Lab Report

An enzyme is a protein catalyst, whose basic function is to increase the rate of the reaction, meaning lowering the activation energy. Because the body creates enzymes to be as specific as possible, in order to prevent inefficiency and careless mistakes, most enzymes come in direct contact with only one substrate to produce products. Enzymes will work on creating substances until the reaction is complete or the particular enzyme is inactivated, which either means being destroyed & recycled or paused, for the essential enzymes needed on a regular basis.
An example of a necessary enzyme is catalase, better known as peroxidase, which catalyses or decomposes the reaction H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide). This enzyme splits hydrogen peroxide, an agent which interferes negatively with others like melanin (provides pigment for hair and skin), and yields water (H2O) and oxygen gas (O2). Because it oxidizes toxins, including acids and alcohols, peroxidase is vital for the human body. …show more content…
The control run was dropping them into distilled water, as it gives “baseline” data without any chemical reactions occurring; however, because of this, the spheres took an average of 56.2 seconds longer to rise in dH2O. The yeast spheres rise in a shorter span of time in H2O2, due to the fact that the catalase contained in the yeast spheres, decomposes hydrogen peroxide into O2, which is what causes the spheres to rise rapidly, and