Beetroot Experiment

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Beetroot Experiment

We are trying to find how the temperature affects the rate at which the

anthocyanin pigment leaves the cells, and at what point does the call

wall melt.

Beetroot Experiment

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Task

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We are trying to find how the temperature affects the rate at which

the anthocyanin pigment leaves the cells, and at what point does the

call wall melt.

Please note the two results highlighted found in "test 4" have not

been included into my results, as they are obviously anomalous.

I did the test more that once to the margin of error smaller. For the

first few times I performed the test I could have made a mistake, so

to give my results a better chance of being accurate I did the

experiment four times and took the average of the tests.

A graph of to clearly show the variation my results can be found

overleaf.

As the temperature increases the transmission reading on the colorimeter decreases. From information that I had already gathered I knew it would be around the 60°C mark to 65°C, hence which I decided to add a test at 63°C. This would help me

make a more accurate estimate at what exact temperature the cell wall

melts. My graph shows a decrease of transparency in the water between

the points of 60°C and 70°C. From this I can make the prediction that

between these two points the wall melts.

Analysis

The transparency of the water suddenly decreases between the points of

60°C and 70°C because this is when the cell wall melts. The cause of

the sudden loss of transparency is caused when the wall melts and it

allows a sudden release of the Anthocyanin pigment. So when the wall

melts the pigment is released and the transparency drops - so to find

the temperature at which the cell wall melts we just have to look for

when there is a sudden loss of transparency in the water.

My experiment shows there is a sudden loss of transparency of the

water between 6O°C and 70°C so I know that the cell wall must have

melted between these two points.

Before 60°C and after 70°C the depreciation is not as drastic as between the two points. This is because before 60°C there is no, or a very little amount of the pigment

allowed to exit the cell, which is not enough to alter the transparency in a big way - this is because up to this point the cell wall is still intact, and after 70°C because most of the pigment has already left the cell because the cell wall has melted.

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