Beetroot Experiment :: Beetroots Anthocyanin Pigment Essays

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 =================== Task ---- 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 60Â °C mark to 65Â °C, hence which I decided to add a test at 63Â °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 60Â °C and 70Â °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 60Â °C and 70Â °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 6OÂ °C and 70Â °C so I know that the cell wall must have melted between these two points. Before 60Â °C and after 70Â °C the depreciation is not as drastic as between the two points. This is because before 60Â °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 70Â °C because most of the pigment has already left the cell because the cell wall has melted.