electrolyte and salivary amylase

oli

i know that salivary amylase needs to be activated with chloride ions. yet from my experiment, it seems that the enzyme rate is higher when using KCl rather than NaCl. any suggestions why?

Monique

Could it have to do with solvation of KCl vs NaCl? That is a very wild guess :)

oli

meaning that KCl would dissociate quicker than NaCl?

Monique

Maybe, it might be negligible though with such ions which dissolve in water very well, but you could just look up the dissociation constants of both?

Did you try the experiment where you add both KCl and NaCl, to see if maybe there is something negatively influencing the reaction in either solutions?