Alcohol Fermentation- Aly Noble

6 Quick Main Topics

• AKA Ethanol Fermentation
• The anaerobic pathway carried out by yeasts when simple sugars are converted to ethanol and carbon dioxide.
• When no oxygen is present, alcohol fermentation occurs in the cytosol of yeast cells.
• There are two parts of the process of alcohol fermentation. The first part consists of the yeast breaking down glucose to form two pyruvate molecules. This part is called glycolysis.
• Soon after two pyruvate molecules are converted into two carbon dioxide molecules and two molecules of ethanol, AKA alcohol. The second part of the process is fermentation.
• The main purpose of this process is to produce ATP (result) which is the energy currency for life, which is present in every cell. Occurs is anaerobic conditions. Overall the ethanol and carbon dioxide are waste products of the process. 

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Reflection:

From learning about Alcoholic Fermentation my perspective on the process changed. I had no idea that the process had two parts to it, and was so complex. Yes, we did learn about this process in school but briefly as we moved onto other topics. Alcoholic fermentation happens anaerobically as eukaryotic microorganism metabolize sugar. Yeast has been used to make products for over thousands of years, but scientists did not realize the use of yeast until about two hundred years ago. Yeast was later discovered to work in both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. I was interested to learn that there are wastes products in this process, which reminded me of the waste products with photosynthesis and cellular respiration. The waste products for Alcoholic Fermentation are carbon dioxide and ethanol. Overall this topic is quite complex and interesting to do research on.

Citations:
"Alcohol Fermentation: Definition, Equation & Process - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.Com". Study.Com, 2017, http://study.com/academy/lesson/alcohol-fermentation-definition-equation-process.html.
"Fermentation". Hyperphysics.Phy-Astr.Gsu.Edu, 2017, http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Biology/ferment.html.