Petroleum No More

Introduction/Procedure
Enzymes which are generally proteins, speed up the rate of chemical reactions. They have specific three dimensional structures and reduce the energy needed to carry out a chemical reaction (otherwise known as the activation energy). Since the enzymes reduce the amount of activation energy the reaction occurs at a quicker pace. Enzymes do not chemically react with the substrate so they can continually help to convert reactants to products. Changes in pH and salinity negatively affect the enzymes productivity. Another factor in the speed of the reaction is heat. More heat, therefor faster moving  enzyme and substrate molecules, causes more collisions and speeds up the reaction. Most enzymes function best at medium temperatures  however there are of course exceptions. The enzymes "natural habitat" is a good reflection of what are optimal temperatures for the enzymes to operate under. Another component to the speed of reaction is concentration of molecules. Until the point of excess, enzymes will speed up the reaction if there are more molecules. This knowledge of enzymes will help us in our lab because we are using cellobiase, (an enzyme) to break down cellobiose to glucose. Also our knowledge of how pH, temperature, and concentration affect reactions will come into consideration when we analyze how these affect our break down of cellobiose. This ability to break down celluloses into glucose is used by biofuel industrys in search of an alternative to petroleum. The glucose can be converted to ethonol which can be used to power engines. In our lab we are not trying to solve the worlds pollution problems, merely trying to understand the process. We are going to use cellubiase to break down cellubiose into glucose. During the process we will take part of the solution at different times in the reaction and attempt to use a stop solution to take "snap shots" of the process. Using p-nitro to turn the glucose a color visible to human eyes, we will be able to see glucose in the making. I predict this will be a successful lab but precision will be necessary throughout.

Results/Observations
During the experiment every later interval progressively became a stronger yellow color. In the beginning the yellow was hard to see and closer to a clear color. Towards the end the last tube that we transfered it into turned a very strong yellow color.  This was also true when we replaced the enzyme with mushroom extract. The results seemed to be nearly identical to the previous days tubes.

Discussion:
This means that the experiment did end up working. The cellobiose inside the main tube was being broken down into glucose and the results were obvious. It also proved that the mushroom acted just like cellobiase in that it also produced the glucose. Although our lab ended up working errors could have occurred during the process such as maybe a certain mushroom doesn't act like cellobiase. If it didn't break down the cellobiose then the p-nitro would have no glucose to turn yellow and we would have to results to look at.