A colleague insists on using inexpensive plastic flasks for experiments, which she claims has never been a problem until her most recent carbohydrate hydrolysis tests. After adding enzymes to a solution containing a polymer reactant, she took a short break, then came back to find all of her flasks melted and her experiment ruined. Your colleague suspects sabotage, but you realize immediately that the answer is much simpler. Why did the flasks melt?

Question

a. Plastic is a polymer, and the addition of an enzyme to the carbohydrate solution was sufficient to reduce the plastic flasks into their base monomers.
b. Hydrolysis reactions require significant energy input to break polymer bonds; she melted her flasks by leaving them unsupervised over lit Bunsen burners.
c. Hydrolysis reactions release energy when polymer bonds are broken. The addition of an enzyme catalyst accelerated the reaction, producing enough waste heat to melt the flasks.
d. Carbohydrate solutions are breeding grounds for microorganisms that metabolize plastic; even in a laboratory environment, plenty of microbes would exist to devour the flasks from within.

Answer 1

c. Hydrolysis reactions release energy when polymer bonds are broken. The addition of an enzyme catalyst accelerated the reaction, producing enough waste heat to melt the flasks.