Investigating How Changing the Concentration of Sucrose Affects Its Reaction Time

Investigating How Changing the Concentration of Sucrose Affects Its Reaction Time

Aim:

To find out how varying concentrations of the substrate (sucrose)

affects the rate of reaction with the enzyme sucrase.

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that as the sucrose concentration increases, the rate

of reaction will also increase.

Scientific Knowledge:

[IMAGE] Enzymes are biological catalysts which increase the rate of a

chemical reaction without directly taking part in the reaction. For

substrates to be broken down into their The necessary components of a

enzyme reaction are an enzyme and a substrate. In the case of my

experiment, the substrate is sucrose and the enzyme is Sucrase. During

the reaction, sucrase breaks sucrose into its two monosaccharide

constituents, glucose and fructose, by catalyzing the hydrolysis

reaction in which the bond holding together the subunits is broken

down by the addition of Hydrogen and Hydroxide from a water molecule.

The enzyme remains unchanged at the end of this reaction. The

monosaccharide combination of glucose and fructose are connected

together to form sucrose by a 1,4 glycosidic bond. I believe that as

the sucrose concentration increases, so will the rate of reaction, but

only up to a certain point. This is shown through the diagram below.

As can be seen, there is a point at which the rate of reaction becomes

constant, and no longer increases. This is because of the way in which

the substrate interacts with the enzyme to form the end products.

[IMAGE]

The diagram above shows that the substrates interact with the enzymes

at a specific location. This location is known as the active site.

Each enzyme molecule has one active site, and this is where the

substrate will attach itself, and the reaction will take place. Once

the substrate has entered the active site, the molecule that is the

substrate and the enzyme together is known as an enzyme-substrate

complex. As the sucrose concentration is increased, the amount of

collisions between the substrate and the enzyme will increase,