Enzyme experiment laboratory report

1. Exploration:
The object of my research was: “How do different temperatures affect the
activity of the catalysis process?” I have been investigating this question
in order to understand how the catalysis reaction works and how
temperature affects the reaction activity. Earlier I have observed such a
reaction that happened with my night lenses which were getting clean by
catalase reaction in hydrogen peroxide.
I made a hypothesis that with different temperatures the rate of activity
of the catalysis will be different, and the higher the temperature is the
stronger the reaction will be, as at higher temperatures atoms start
moving faster.
During my experiment, I planned to use three beakers with water at
different temperatures: 43° C (I heated water in a beaker before
experiment), 20° C (just at room temperature), and 10° C (I put ice in the
beaker with water in order to cool it down). I also planned to measure the
activity of the catalysis by measuring the layer thickness where bubbles
are formed due to the reaction. For that the following instruments were
used::
● a ruler (the thickness of the bubbles layer),
● a timer (to compare how fast something in the reaction changes,
for example colours, the amount of bubbles, etc.),
● a thermometer (for temperature measurements).
We agreed in our group that we would use 5 ml of hydrogen peroxide
and 2 ml of dish soap for each tube, where we put the potatoes. In our
material list, we put:
a. Potato
b. Hydrogen peroxide
c. Dish soap
Additional materials for supplying the experiment conditions are:
d. Kettle
e. Water
f. Jars x 3
g. Test tubes
h. Knife
i. Ice

The experiment methodology or the steps we used to conduct our

experiment are:
1) cut the potato into 3 equal pieces,
2) prepare three similar beakers,
3) heat the water up to 43 °C and pour it into the first beaker,
4) pour water in the second beaker and let it be at room
temperature (20°C),
 5) pour water in the third beaker,
6) put some ice into the third beaker with water and wait till the
water is cooled down to 10°C,
7) use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the water in
the different beakers, then write the results of measurements
down in a table,
8) place pieces of potato in 3 separate test tubes and wait for 2
minutes,
9) pour 5 ml of hydrogen peroxide in each test tube,
10) immediately after that, put 2 ml of dish soap into each test tube,
11) wait for the reaction to start,
12) measure height of the bubbles layer (thickness) with a rule in
order to determine how intensive the reaction in each test tube is.
In the experiment we changed the temperature of the catalysis reaction
by changing and controlling the temperature of water in different
beakers (10; 20; 43°C) where the test tubes were inserted during the
experiment. The independent variables are the temperature which we
controlled by thermometer and measured in °C and time in minutes
measured by a timer. The amount of materials used in different test
tubes were similar to prevent differences in the reaction conditions, thus,
only the effect of the temperature and reaction time on the reaction
intensity could be observed.
Dependent variable is the thickness of the bubble layer in each tube.
This variable describes the intensity of chemical reaction depending on
the temperature. We measured it in centimetres by a ruler.

Safety first.
We were aware of the hazards in our experiment, for example, hot water
could burn someone’s skin, or the hydrogen peroxide could irritate
someone’s skin or eyes. We took the necessary measures to prevent
hazards from happening during the experiment: 1) put on goggles; 2) put
on gloves; 3) work carefully, don't hurry up.

2. Analysis:
a. Results
Experiment at 43° C:
Reaction started immediately and created a thick layer of bubbles.
After 2 minutes , it reached a thickness of 3.5 cm, and was still
growing very fast. In 5 min, it was 4.3 cm, in 10 min — 4.6 cm, and
when the reaction finally stopped after 15 min, the layer thickness
was 5.0 cm.
Experiment at 20° C:
Reaction started almost immediately, we observed many little
bobbles in a layer of 2.4 cm in 2 min. In 5 min, it was 3.1 cm, and at
the end, after 7 min, it reached 4.0 cm.
Experiment at 10° C:
This reaction ended quite quickly: it only lasted 3 minutes. In 1 min
30 s the layer of bobbles was only 1.0 cm, and at the end it could
reach 1.8 cm.
 Temperature of Final thickness of How long did the
water bubble layer reaction last

Tube 1 43° C 5.0 cm 15 min

Tube 2 20​​° C 4.0 cm 7 min

Tube 3 10° C 1.8 cm 3 min

b. Conclusion
During the experiment, I’ve noticed the following tendency: the
higher the temperature, the more active the reaction is. We can
see it in the table: the experiment at 43° C created a thicker layer
of bubbles than the one at 20° C and also the reaction had lasted
longer. The experiment at 20° C showed a longer reaction time and
a thicker layer of bubbles than the one at 10° C. Therefore, I
confirmed that my hypothesis was right. Thus, I can make the
conclusion that if we want to conduct the intensive catalysis
reaction and don’t want to wait too long for it to happen, we need
to increase the temperature, for example, we can put the tube with
the catalase in a beaker with water and heat the beaker, as we
made with one of our tubes during the experiment.
The reliability of the experiment is defined by the instrument
reliability which were used in the experiment (of the ruler, the timer
and the thermometer). The instruments have some measurement
errors which influence the accuracy and precision of
measurements. We could improve the measurement accuracy by
using more accurate instruments. Thus, we can improve the
accuracy here by using a more accurate ruler. The same is for
timer and thermometer, if we use more accurate instruments, the
determination of the values will be better.
The strength of the selected method is that we performed the
experiment at three different temperatures, not just at two for
example. The weakness of the experiment, in my opinion, is that
there were two independent variables that influenced the
reaction: temperature and time, thus, it was not always so easy to
determine very precisely the time of reaction finish. Due to the
bubble formation, the thickness of the layer was also determined
with some uncertainty. Therefore, I expect that the measuring
uncertainties for time and layer thickness can be big.
I think the data that I collected were sufficient and reliable, as I
measured variables with well working instruments (timer,
thermometer) provided by the teacher, thus, they might be verified.
I think I could have improved my experiment by performing it at
some other different temperatures (lower than 10°C and larger
than 43°C), for example, at five different temperatures. This would
help to enlarge the number of measurement data and, thus, to
verify my hypothesis at a wider range of temperatures.
Additional investigations
I also could investigate the influence of the amount of chemicals
used in the experiment (hydrogen peroxide, soup) on the reaction
intensity. Additionally, it would be interesting to perform a search
for information about how we use catalases in life and in
technology, and how different pH affects the activity of catalysis
reaction.