Enzymes

[Brandon Yu]

Because enzymes, in a biology class, are all about activation energy and lowering the activation energy of a reaction, I was wondering how that looks in terms of the chemistry equations that we have learned so far in this course?

[Sophia Schiro]

From my understanding, enzymes can affect the rate of reaction, which we learned about in the past few lectures. This is because in many biological processes, there is an enzyme called a catalyst that speeds up the reaction.

[Daljit Takher 1B]

enzymes will not the effect balanced equation for a reaction but will appear in the rate law equations

[Sasha Gladkikh 2A]

Enzymes speed up reactions by providing an alternative reaction pathway of lower activation energy. In other words, enzymes decrease the free energy of the transition state. Like all catalysts, enzymes take part in the reaction — that is how they provide an alternative reaction pathway. But, they do not undergo permanent changes and remain unchanged at the end of the reaction.

[tim_villasenor 1k]

do enzymes affect gibbs free energy?

[Adithi Ayyala 2G]

Enzymes and catalysts often have more to do with the speed of the equation (kinetics) rather than the thermodynamics or spontaneity of a reaction (which Gibbs free energy effects).

[Saatvika Nair]

Based on what we've learned in class, enzymes affect the activation energy and speed of the reaction. So there is no effect on the chemical reaction or equilibrium constant, but it will affect the rate constant.

[Yajing Feng 2J]

Will the presence of enzymes affect the entropy and enthalpy values?

[AnoushkaBhat2J]

Will the presence of enzymes affect the entropy and enthalpy values?

Hello! I don't think enzymes will affect enthalpy values because it is a state function that does not depend on the activation energy. Catalysts simply make the reaction rate increase because they reduce the activation energy, but don't alter the enthalpy. I'm a bit confused about entropy, however, and whether it would increase.

[Om Patel]

enzymes will not affect the overall chemical equation they speed up the reaction

[Wilson Zheng 1L]

Enzymes are a type of biological catalyst that lowers the Ea!

[Sophia Hartwell 1F]

 Enzymes are biological catalysts that reduce the Ea. They do not change the overall chemical equation, but they do speed up the reaction.

[Sammy Liu]

Enzymes act as a catalyst. They are apart of the reaction, but they are not consumed nor created in the process. They simply create an alternative pathway for the reaction that has a lower activation energy, in turn speeding up the rate of the reaction.
Regarding how it would look like in a chemical equation, it would not be apart of the chemical equation, however it would be denoted somewhere that the chemical reaction is taking place in the presence of this enzyme.

Hope this helps!

[Jennifer Kainth 3L]

Enzymes impact activation energy and reaction speed. As a result, it has no effect on the chemical reaction or the equilibrium constant.

[Rachel Bartley 2B]

In chemistry, we look at enzymes and catalysts to see how they affect the speed at which reactions occur.

[Lulu Almoshawah_2K]

enzymes lower the activation energy and speed up the reaction. they do not affect the chemical reaction or equilibrium constant, but will affect the rate constant. hope this helps.

[raynebunado]

They just lower the activation energy but do not affect anything else!

[106024424]

So enzymes will lower the activation energy, this might be important for questions comparing the k value, but otherwise what you need to know is that enzymes will be a reactant (they won't be created by the reaction) and they will essentially be a product at the end of the reaction so these will cancel each other out and will not affect the equilibrium.