Antibacterial Properties of Garlic and Mint
Mint and Garlic Practical
Aim: The aim of this experiment was to investigate into the antibacterial properties of some plants.
Variables:
Independent Variable: Type of plant used
Dependant Variable: The diameter in cm of clearing
Confounding Variables: Room temperature Surrounding bacteria Concentration of plant solution Volume of plant solution
Safety Precautions
No food or drink was to be consumed during the experiment as we were using living bacteria which could harm our health.
When using the methylated spirits eye goggles were worn to prevent it from splashing into our eyes.
Lab coats were worn throughout the experiment to protect our clothes from methylated spirits.
Contamination
To avoid contamination during this experiment I used the following aseptic techniques:
Washed hands thoroughly before and after experiment.
Disinfected work surfaces with 1% Virkon
No eating or drinking
Made sure equipment was sterile before use by immersing in methylated spirits and then heating in a Bunsen burner.
Results
Reliability of Results
To make sure my results were reliable I repeated it many times and found the average. Extreme anomalies have been left out of the data used. I also recorded the results of a control for both variables. The control was soaked in methylated spirits to see if this inhibited the growth of bacteria also.
Conclusions
After analysing the data obtained from the experiments I worked out the average diameter or bacteria cleared by each disk. I can see from my results that the garlic was more successful at clearing the bacteria. The average clearing by garlic was 9.56 mm. However the mint solution made an average clearing of 7.43 mm. This is a lower value than the garlic and so I can deduce that garlic has better antibacterial properties than mint. The results vary quite a lot which suggest unreliability. In this experiment we used dried mint leaves, if we had used fresh leaves the
Aim: The aim of this experiment was to investigate into the antibacterial properties of some plants.
Variables:
Independent Variable: Type of plant used
Dependant Variable: The diameter in cm of clearing
Confounding Variables: Room temperature Surrounding bacteria Concentration of plant solution Volume of plant solution
Safety Precautions
No food or drink was to be consumed during the experiment as we were using living bacteria which could harm our health.
When using the methylated spirits eye goggles were worn to prevent it from splashing into our eyes.
Lab coats were worn throughout the experiment to protect our clothes from methylated spirits.
Contamination
To avoid contamination during this experiment I used the following aseptic techniques:
Washed hands thoroughly before and after experiment.
Disinfected work surfaces with 1% Virkon
No eating or drinking
Made sure equipment was sterile before use by immersing in methylated spirits and then heating in a Bunsen burner.
Results
Reliability of Results
To make sure my results were reliable I repeated it many times and found the average. Extreme anomalies have been left out of the data used. I also recorded the results of a control for both variables. The control was soaked in methylated spirits to see if this inhibited the growth of bacteria also.
Conclusions
After analysing the data obtained from the experiments I worked out the average diameter or bacteria cleared by each disk. I can see from my results that the garlic was more successful at clearing the bacteria. The average clearing by garlic was 9.56 mm. However the mint solution made an average clearing of 7.43 mm. This is a lower value than the garlic and so I can deduce that garlic has better antibacterial properties than mint. The results vary quite a lot which suggest unreliability. In this experiment we used dried mint leaves, if we had used fresh leaves the