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 Absorbance (C) Data 1 Data 2 Data 3 Data 4 Data 5 Average 10 0.240 0.000 0.020 0.034 0.000 0.059 20 0.180 0.000 0.020 0.037 0.000 0.047 30 0.135 0.061 0.050 0.035 0.086 0.073 40 0.217 0.030 0.160 0.118 0.108 0.127 50 0.202 0.413 1.250 0.134 0.255 0.451 60 0.564 1.429 1.950 0.649 2.063 1.331 70 0.564 2.431 2.070 0.770 2.287 1.624

Graph:

Temperature VS Absorbance
1.800 1.600 1.400 Absorbace 1.200 1.000 0.800 0.600 0.400 0.200 0.000 10 20 30 40 temperature 50 60 70

As we can clearly see here, the absorbance increases significantly starting from 40C 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.