Sugar Rush: The Effects of Sugar Concentrations on CO2 Output in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

Anytime bread is baked, it is done using yeast such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a unicellular organism that, through fermentation, consumes sugar and releases carbon dioxide (CO₂), which causes the bread to rise (Hewitson & Hill 2019). Glycolysis plays a large role in anaerobic yeast fermentation, so the amount of sugar added to yeast can have a large effect on yeast production. We tested different concentrations of dextrose to find which concentration was the most efficient between 1%, 2%, and 3%. We hypothesized that the 2% would have the most success. We tested the CO₂ output of each concentration with a CO₂ probe for five-minute intervals of three trials.  While the 2% concentration did consume the most amount of dextrose, we found that the 1% solution showed the greatest efficacy. This shows that, when using dextrose, S. cerevisiae will be the most productive in a 1% dextrose concentration.