Why does color leak out of cooked beetroot?

Aim: to investigate the effects of temperature on membrane structure

Hypothesis: I think raising the temperature will increase the permeability of the membranes because the molecules will be moving faster which will increase the rate of diffusion across the cell membranes.

Results:We used a calorimeter to calculate the amount of absorbance our decanted liquid had of dye, which would then allow us to plot on a graph.

Temperature (°C)

AbsorbanceData 1 Data 2 Data 3 Data 4 Data 5 Average

10 0.240 0.000 0.020 0.034 0.000 0.05920 0.180 0.000 0.020 0.037 0.000 0.04730 0.135 0.061 0.050 0.035 0.086 0.07340 0.217 0.030 0.160 0.118 0.108 0.12750 0.202 0.413 1.250 0.134 0.255 0.45160 0.564 1.429 1.950 0.649 2.063 1.33170 0.564 2.431 2.070 0.770 2.287 1.624

Graph:

10 20 30 40 50 60 700.000

0.200

0.400

0.600

0.800

1.000

1.200

1.400

1.600

1.800

Temperature VS Absorbance

temperature

Ab

sorb

ace

As we can clearly see here, the absorbance increases significantly starting from 40°C as the temperature increases, therefore proving that an increase in temperature increases the permeability of the cell membranes due to faster movements of particles.

Evaluation: this experiment could have been improved by several ways. First of all, repeating the experiment a couple more times would have increased the reliability of our results due to a more accurate average. Everyone did not remove the test tubes containing the beetroots at the same time, some stayed in much longer than others, therefore a good timing would have also increased the reliability of our results. For systematic errors, the calorimeters were not functioning at their best, sometimes displaying a completely wrong reading.