Our goal with this lab is to discover how enzymes affect the production and destruction of harmful chemicals our body makes into harmless chemicals. Our body contains hundreds of enzymes in our cells and this lab will show us how they interact with parts and materials of our bodies. The enzyme we will be focusing on is called catalase. It’s job for the body is to break down hydrogen peroxide a harmful substance into two harmless substances oxygen and water. For the first part of our lab part A we were focusing on observing a normal catalase reaction. We used a normal piece of liver to start it off the rate of reaction for the liver was about a three on a scale from 0-5, 0 being nothing and 5 being fast. …show more content…
The first piece of liver tested was we submerged it in boiling water for roughly five minutes, we got a zero reaction rate after testing it because the extreme heat totally changes the structure of the enzyme no longer having the catalase enzyme but something different. We also submerged a piece of liver in a beaker of ice and was submerged for roughly 5 minutes we then tested it and got a reaction rate of about 1 and a small amount of bubbles created because the low temperature slowed down the speed the reaction could happen. The last test for this part was we had liver in just warm water and then tested it and we had a reaction of about a 5 and a ton of bubble almost overflowing the test tube it's because the enzymes weren’t exposed to heat that could change them but heat that would speed the reaction.
The last part of our lab part D was what does pH affect the catalase activity. Our first test tube had a basic solution with a pH of 10 and the reaction rate was about a 4. Our next test tube was filled with an acidic solution with a pH of 3 and that ended up having a reaction rate of 2 and a small amount of bubbles. Our last test tube test was a neutral solution and the reaction rate was 0 and no bubbles formed and nothing happened. This concludes that basic solution are the most effective then acidic solutions and neutral solutions won't do anything to the