How does one find the rate of the reaction between catalase and hydrogen peroxide? What is being measured? The time it takes to completely react or the amount of oxygen gas being given off? Help, please. Also, from that, i have to know how to determine the order of reaction which i'm very confused about :/ Thanks in advance!

Question

cuanchi · Answer

I guess this is question is making reference to some experiment that you did before. To be able to help you I think I need more information about the experiment and how it was done. I can't answer if you measure time or oxygen. I will assume that is the amount of oxygen in a certain time (initial rate). The rate will be the change in the concentration of oxygen in a time unit. I think you measure the production of oxygen in one minute, after 2, 3, 4 etc. 
For the order of the reaction you have to do a graph of the oxygen produced by time and see if you have a straight line or a curve, if is a line the order will be zero order, if it is a curve you have to graph the ln [O] in function of the time, if it is a straight line is the 1 order if it is also a curve you have to graph the 1/[O] and see if you get a straight line, in this case will be if 2rd order

aaronq · Answer

It's easier to monitor the disappearance of $H_2O_2$ spectrophotometrically because it absorbs in the UV range.