Water quality - contamination by heavy metals with Cobra SMARTsense

Principle

Heavy metal ions can get into surface or ground water from deposits or through the waste water of galvanic or similar production plants. They block the action of enzymes so that the metabolic processes controlled by these enzymes can be disturbed or blocked by organisms. With the help of urea hydrolysis, the blockage of enzymes by heavy metal ions can be measured with conventional laboratory methods.

Benefits

• Especially understandable and didactically prepared description of the experiment (reference to everyday life etc.) including protocol questions.
• Future-oriented teaching: Integration into digital science lessons with tablets or smartphones.
• Increased motivation of students by using the intuitive measureAPP.
• Increased media competence.

Tasks

The students investigate two enzymatic cleavage processes, one with and one without the addition of heavy metals.

Learning Objectives

The students should recognize that heavy metals can influence the effect of enzymes.