Inroduction:
(a) When biofuels are made, a source that was currently living is turned into reusable energy as fuels. This is different from fossil fuels because the materials used to make them are dead rather than living. The four main types of biofuel development are cellulosic ethanol(cellulose to glucose),ethanol production from sugar and starch sources,syngases(from biomass burning),and biodiesels(from oils). Right now in the fuel industry,the ethanol produced comes from starches that is turned into sugar. There are two problems(a lot of the plant ends up being unused, and is a food source) with this method so researchers are trying to find out how to produce ethanol as fuels by using cellulose instead of using starches. Enzymes lower the activation energy of a chemical reaction which allows it to occur at a much faster rate. Biofuel industries use cellulases(family of enzymes) from cellulose to turn it itno sugars(glucose). It can then be made into ethanol by means of fermentation. The ethanol produced can then be used to power certain engines and combined wtih gasoline to power vehicles.
(b) The purpose of this lab is to identify the reaction rates with and without the prescense of an enzyme. The practical use of this enzyme will prove relevent since the biofuel industry is using enzymes to convert into ethanol.
(c) We will use 5 cuvettes and fill them equally with solution. The chemical reaction will begin when the buffer is added to the controlled solution. The stop solution (enzyme reaction) will kill the cellobiase and turn P-Nitophenal yellow.
(d) I predict that the stop solution will turn the liquid inside the cuvettes more and more yellow. But on the second day of the lab where the mushroom is added, it will be a consistent color of yellow throughout all of the cuvettes.
Results/Obsevations:
On the first day of the lab, when the stop solutions were added to each of the cuvettes, the color of the solution in them became noticably more yellow each time. On the second day with the addition of an enzyme to speed up the chemical reaction, each solution in the cuvettes remained unchanged. All were the same shade of yellow.
Dicussion:
(a) The first day of the lab consisted of different shades of yellow of solution as time went on. This was the progress of an uninfluenced chemical reaction. The second day of the lab consisted of an unchanging shade of yellow solution as time went on. With the addition of an enzyme (mushroom), the chemical reaction occured and finished much quicker.
(b) Some errors for this lab could be that the time sensitive steps were not done properly-did not count the minutes for the addition of stop solution to the cuvettes.
