Enzyme Lab (Noah)

Enzyme & pH Lab

Introduction:

We were testing and observing the chemical reaction that occurs when enzymes react with different pH levels. Enzymes are made up of amino acids, and act as a catalyst in a reaction. These catalysts do different things in your body, such as helping the immune system function, and digesting food. Enzymes also speed up all chemical reactions that take place if they’re part of the mixture (they usually are). Enzymes are located in almost all living things on the earth.

Purpose:

We were testing to see the difference in chemical reactions between chemicals with varying pH levels and enzymes.

Hypothesis:

I hypothesized that enzyme reactions would be larger and faster in basic solutions than in acidic ones. If pHs are connected to the reaction of an enzyme and chemical, then if the chemical is more basic, the reaction will be bigger and faster.

Materials:

• bindweed
• hydrogen peroxide
• water
• beakers
• test tubes
• syringes
• iPhone
• mortar and pestle
• hydrochloric acid
• sodium hydroxide
• safety goggles
• paper towels

Procedure:

1. Get bindweed
2. Use mortar and pestle to turn bindweed into paste
3. Add 20 mm of water to bindweed paste
4. Place paper towel over beaker
5. Pour bindweed and water mixture into paper towel
6. Squeeze bindweed inside paper towel to extract enzymes
7. Put 1 mL bindweed extract liquid into a test tube
8. Put 1 mL of solution in test tube
9. Put 0.5 mL of hydrogen peroxide into test tube
10. Measure reaction bubble column
1. Record seconds passed for each mm higher column becomes

Observations and Data:

7 pH		10 pH		7.5 pH		6.5 pH		5.5 pH
control 1	control 2	pH 12 // 1	pH 12 // 2	pH 10 // 1	pH 10 // 2	pH 3-4 // 1	pH 3-4 // 2	pH 2-3 // 1	pH 2-3 // 2
3.87	3.14	1.46	2.98	0.46	1.68	1.16	3.51	1.54	1.66
6.29	13.07	3.17	4.32	1.37	3.19	4.21	8.37	5.43	4.96
8.2	17.35	5.28	5.93	2.53	4.67	7.54	27.58	12.04	10.81
10.15	20.98	6.67	8.17	4.41	6.55	10.85			17.37
12.56	24.68	8.23	12.68	5.14	8.14	13.78
15.94	29.94	9.68	15.49	6.37	9.77	17.04
20.3		11.26	17.94	7.7	11.72	24.59
23.18		12.91	20.78	9.41	13.6
26.14		14.74	24.16	10.91	15.94
29.45		17.34		12.9	18.34
32.88				14.28
36.63				17.3
40.94

Data Analysis:

Each point on the graph is another millimeter. Each line is the average data found for that chemical solution. For example, the blue line indicates that after 3 seconds, the reaction bubble column was about 16 mm tall.

Conclusion:

My data shows that the control and basic chemicals react more with the enzymes. The pH levels of 10 and 12 produced a bigger reaction for a longer period of time, while the more acidic chemicals outputted a smaller, quicker reaction. My hypothesis was correct, because I thought that basic solutions would have larger foam columns. The abiotic factor that played into this experiment is the pH level of the various chemicals. The higher the pH, the bigger the reaction.