AS Biology Beetroot

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My Evaluation I have plotted all three repetitions alongside one another to try to see if there are any apparent anomalies. I am now going to work out the means of the results that I obtained, by adding up all the colorimeter readings for each temperature and then dividing them by the number of results that I use, and then plot these results against the corresponding temperatures. Mean 26°C = 0.022 + 0.115 + 0.065 = 0.066 3 Mean 36°C = 0.166 + 0.201 + 0.103 = 0.157 3 Mean 40°C = 0.186 + 0.218 + 0.187 = 0.197 3 Mean 56°C = 1.102 + 1.465 + 1.739 = 1.435 3 Mean 62°C = 1.283 + 1.898 + 1.932 = 1.704 3 In my graph of mean values plotted against the corresponding temperatures, you can see that from 26°C – 40°C the line is fairly flat and rising slowly and steadily. After 40°C the gradient of the line becomes steeper and the line begins to curve. My graph does not plateau, although it may have done so if higher temperatures were available to me. From 26°C to 40°C there is a gradual increase in the absorbency, which indicates that it is because of naturally occurring diffusion. Diffusion of the pigment happens because the concentration of beetroot pigment is higher within the cell than outside the cell. So diffusion occurs down the concentration gradient, from an area of high concentration to an area of lower concentration, across the partially permeable membrane of the beetroot cell. As the temperature increases the molecules within the beetroot are given more kinetic energy and thus the process of diffusion is speeded up. From 40°C to 62°C there is a sudden increase in the absorbency reading, which indicates that the cell the cell walls of the beetroot are being denatured. For example, at 40°C the mean absorbency was 0.197 compared to the 62°C were the mean absorbency was 1.704. as the
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