Shocking News; The Effects of Thermal Shock on CO2 Production in Yeast

Abstract

Many factors have an effect on yeast cellular respiration rate. These factors include pH, temperature, nutrient availability, and the concentration of available nutrients. When yeast is exposed to a cold thermal shock the fermentation process is lengthened, which doesn’t allow the yeast to produce CO2 as quickly, therefore we hypothesized that when yeast is exposed to a hot thermal shock there will be more CO2 produced. To put our hypothesis to the test we experimented the effects of room temperature with no thermal shock, a hot thermal shock, and a cold thermal shock and recorded the CO2 production rate for each test. We then compared the results of each and found that our hypothesis was supported; the hot thermal shock had the greatest effect on the yeast’s CO2 production rate.