Kelvin The Science Guy!

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Hello folks and welcome to another post. This time I'll be doing school work and not necessarily posting about my life, trying to diversify my blog you know? Today I'll be talking about respiration, which is the transport of oxygen from the outside air into our cells within tissues, and carbon dioxide in the opposite direction. To start off, here's a video of Bill Nye's episode on Respiration. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXeHpYHsEpc&spfreload=10

Respiration is one of, if not the most vital process for the continuation of human activity. Without it, humans will perish from the world we know. To most people it is the simple act of breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide, but there's much to it than just that. The body uses the energy produced by respiration to enable the muscles to move, without the energy we wouldn't be able to move. Most of the respiration happens inside the mitochondria, inside the cytoplasm of the cell. The enzymes control the reactions. Aerobic respiration produces the most energy, since the glucose is fully broken down, whereas in anaerobic it is not.

The Mitochondria of a cell

Aerobic respiration is the process where we take in glucose and oxygen and produce carbon dioxide, water and energy. This happens in the cells of our bodies especially the mitochondria , and the enzymes help to break down the glucose. The equation is:
GLUCOSE + OXYGEN = CARBON DIOXIDE + WATER + ENERGY  
The symbol equation is:
C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂    →    6CO₂ + 6H₂O (+ energy)
On the other hand anaerobic respiration is respiration happening without oxygen, this produces lactic acid in our muscles and needing oxygen to break it down, since lactic acid is bad for our muscles, this is called oxygen debt. Oxygen debt is the amount of oxygen needed to break down the lactic acid. Anaerobic respiration also happens in the production of foods with yeast. Yeast is a living microorganism that respires like us, but its produces different substances when going through anaerobic respiration, instead they produce ethanol and carbon dioxide.









Here are the equations for anaerobic respiration:
For normal anaerobic respiration:
GLUCOSE = LACTIC ACID + ENERGY
C₆H₁₂O₆  =    2C₃H₆O₃ + 120 kJ/mol

For anaerobic respiration happening in plants and yeast:

Glucose   =   Ethanol + Carbon dioxide + Energy
C₆H₁₂O₆   =   2C₂H₅OH + 2CO₂ + Energy

Yeast is used in bread making and alcohol production. It is used for alcohol since it produces ethanol when it anaerobically respires, proven by the equation above. The way how yeast is used to make alcohol is by fermentation. It is the process where yeast converts sugars, like glucose into alcohol. Yeast is specifically used in the making of beer and wine. Other than alcohol it is also used in the making of bread. It is used in bread because the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast will make the bread rise, without it we wouldn't get the smooth, soft bread we all know and love. There is no ethanol in the bread as it evaporates during baking, which happens at high temperatures.

Well that's all folks! Thank you for watching today's episode/post and I hope you will grasp some information about respiration, the system that keeps us going. See you next time!

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