Detection Of Biological Molecules

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Detection of Biological Molecules

Introduction: Without carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen and phosphorus, life wouldn't exist. These are the most abundant elements in living organisms.
These elements are held together by covalent bonds, ionic bonds, hydrogen bonds, and disulfide bonds. Covalent bonds are especially strong, thus, are present in monomers, the building blocks of life. These monomers combine to make polymers, which is a long chain of monomers strung together. Biological molecules can be distinguished by their functional groups. For example, an amino group is present in amino acids, and a carboxyl group can always be found in fatty acids.
The groups can be separated into two more categories, the polar, hydrophilic, and the nonpolar, hydrophobic. A fatty acid is nonpolar, hence it doesn't mix with water. Molecules of a certain class have similar chemical properties because they have the same functional groups. A chemical test that is sensitive to these groups can be used to identify molecules that are in that class. This lab is broken down into four different sections, the Benedict's test for reducing sugars, the iodine test for the presence of starch, the Sudan III test for fatty acids, and the Biuret test for amino groups present in proteins. The last part of this lab takes an unknown substance and by the four tests, determine what the substance is.

BENEDICT'S TEST

Introduction: Monosaccharides and disaccharides can be detected because of their free aldehyde groups, thus, testing positive for the Benedict's test.
Such sugars act as a reducing agent, and is called a reducing sugar. By mixing the sugar solution with the Benedict's solution and adding heat, an oxidation- reduction reaction will occur. The sugar will oxidize, gaining an oxygen, and the Benedict's reagent will reduce, loosing an oxygen. If the resulting solution is red orange, it tests positive, a change to green indicates a smaller amount of reducing sugar, and if it remains blue, it tests negative.

Materials: onion juice 5 test tubes 1 beaker potato juice ruler hot plate deionized water permanent marker&nb... ... middle of paper ...

...cedures: 1. Performed the Benedict's Test, and recorded results. 2.
Performed the Iodine Test, and recorded results. 3. Performed the Sudan III
Test, and recorded results. 4. Performed the Biuret Test, and recorded results.

Data: Properties of Chemical #143

chemical #143 was a white powderish substance.

Conclusion: After ruling out the obvious wrong substances from the list like ground coffee, egg white and yolk, table sugar and salt, syrup and honey, the small amount of proteins was taken into factor. That also eliminated powdered skim milk, and soy flour. The low, or none fat content ruled out some more choices like enriched flour. The only choices left was corn starch, glucose, and potato starch. Because of the low reducing sugar, glucose can be ruled out also. The starch content of substance #143 was very high. The protein content was around the 10% range, so potato starch would be a better guess then corn starch.
But corn starch contained only a trace of fat when potato starch contained 0.8%.
But 0.8% is very insignificant. The most educated guess to what chemical #143 is potato starch.

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