Hi,
Welcome to science buddies! This is a very good project idea, but you will need to do additional background reading in order to plan a really good experiment. When you’re not sure how to get started, there’s nothing better than finding out more about the science of your topic. So, to help you design a good experiment, you need to learn as much as possible about the chemistry of motor oil, and also about enzymes that could be used to break them down, and you need to find a way to measure the motor oil. Here are some websites that contain background information on these topics:
http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/Oils1.html
http://www.rsc.org/education/teachers/l ... nzymes.htm
http://www.housekeepingchannel.com/t_51 ... zyme_Spray
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newen ... -medicine/
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... RW52U2NpLH (from the science buddies website)
A6MixyaWQ6MTIyMzg2OQ&from=TSW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyolefin
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour ... 1&SRETRY=0
Motor oil is a complex mixture of oil and additives. So, for a science fair project, it might be better to use polyolefin, the primary constituent of synthetic motor as for your starting sample and eliminate the unknown effects of all of the additives. If you look at the structure of polyolefin, you can see that it contains chains of carbon atoms. Enzymes are biologically active proteins that are derived from living organisms, such as bacteria and fungi, and have the ability to break a specific chemical bond. You need an enzyme that will break the carbon-carbon bond on the polyolefin. As far as I can see, there are no commercially available enzymes that will break down this large molecule directly, but perhaps you can find one. Most of the scientific references use microorganisms as a source of enzymes, but the one product (Zout) does claim to have an enzyme that will break down oil. You should find out more about the specificity of the enzyme in this product. Oil and water are not miscible, so you might be able to measure the breakdown of the oil by measuring the decrease in volume of the lighter oil mixture floating on top of the aqueous phase of the sample. In a laboratory, you could use mass spec analysis, but this requires sophisticated equipment that you probably don’t have access to.
Your goal for your project will be to design a carefully controlled experiment that will allow you to measure the breakdown of the oil. Please let us know if you have any questions about planning your experiment. Also, the information I have given here assumes that you have had basic chemistry, so do ask more questions if you need help understanding the chemistry of this project. We do want you to have a really good project.
What is your time frame for this project?
Donna Hardy