Enzyme Pressure Lab

This lab was intended to see how much pressure a yeast and H2O/H2O2 mixure could withstand in 3 minutes and was measured in kPa(kilo pascals). Madey Eckart, Sam Torres, and myself did this lab together...also with the help of Megan Roberson and Brett Copper.

In this part of the lab we measured how much yeast was put in a 3mL H2O/3mL H2O2 beaker and used different amounts of drops from a pipe-let throughout the experiment. In the first test we measure how much pressure a pipe-let with 10 drops of yeast could withstand. In the graph above it shows that the beaker could withstand 8.007kPa. In the second test we measured 15 drops instead of the 10 and it withstood 11.4 kPa. Our final test surprised us because in about half way through the pressure plug popped off from the beaker before the 3 min was over so the pressure it withstood was only 8.583kPa. So we all came to the conclusion that with more yeast the pressure builds up quicker but it can't withstand as much.

In this part of the lab we measured the the pressure in different temperatures. We kept a constant number of yeast drops (20) that were put into the beakers and still used 3mL H2O/ 3mL H2O2. In the first test we used a Room Temp. mixture and got a 8.587kPa result. The second test was a Cold temp. mixture and got a low pressure rate of 6.037kPa. In the third test we used a Warm Temp. mixture and got a pressure level of 8.569 kPa. In our fourth and final test we used a Hot Temp. mixture and got a pressure level of 7.427kPa. In this experiment the pressure seemed to jump around a little bit so we couldn't really find a pattern to it but I think if the water is too hot or cold the pressure will decrease.

This was the last experiment we did in this lab and was definitely different than the last two because instead of mixing the 3 mL H2O in with the 3mL H2O2 we replace the H2O with 3 mL different Ph leveled liquids but still used the 20 drops of yeast as in the second experiment. In the first test we did we used a pure acidic substance and in the result of it was 5.316kPa.In the second test we used a very neutral substance and the pressure level was 6.4 kPa. In the third and final test we used a pure basic substance which lasted to the pressure of 6.805kPa. So in the conclusion of this experiment as long as the substance is more basic it could withstand more pressure.

This experiment was fun in my opinion and hope we do more like this. Not only did I learn more about enzymes, but also how they effect certain things.