Question

During a lab with the fermentation of sugar, the question asks: Why is the amount of gas you measured only an estimate of the ATP produced? Consider what you know about liquids and gases. How can you change the setup to make it more accurate?

Answer 1

The calculation of the gas produced can only be used for estimation of ATP,

[the no of moles of gas produced can be calculated using the ideal gas law equation ,,where the Volume=V can be calculated by using the round balloons to collect the gas and measuring the radius of balloon thereby calculating its volume]

,as there is a high possibility of wastage of gas by following ways-

1. some amount of can get dissolved in water and we cannot measure it as a gas by the above process
2. during measurement of the volume,there is a high chance that some gas might has escaped and again we cannot measure it!
3. due to impatience of students,they often ignore the leftover sugar during measurement which gives another route of approximation

The measurement setup can be made more reliable if we follow the below mentioned steps-

• The experiment should be performed in a closed system like setup so that there is no loss of the gas during measurements
• all the gases should be removed from the water prior the measurements so that there is no chance of mixing
• the temperature should be maintained throughout the experiment for precise measurements.