Anaerobic Respiration

Question

Glucose partially breaks down into pyruvic acid during anaerobic respiration. This then proceeds to form Ethanol and Carbon Dioxide. My question is, what is the faith of the ethanol? Lactic acid in humans is sent to the liver to be broken down. Does ethanol travel somewhere in the plant to be broken down, if so where and how?

Answer 1

Well, first glucose completely breaks down into 2 pyruvates. For fermentation glycolysis can repeat because of the recycling of NADH, and Pyruvate. The two products depend on what type of organism is using fermentation. in animals, it turns to creates lactic acid in the muscles. If it is in yeast or bacteria it produces ethanol, ethanol is alcohol (the type we drink) and is used in making beers, wines, and spirits.

Answer 2

In the laboratory, we have a special tube for drawing blood to test for lactic acid (ethanol and glucose as well, depending on the lab.) Usually the tube has a gray top and contains powdered sodium fluoride and/or potassium oxalate. The purpose of the additives is to inhibit glycolysis and prevent the red blood cells from doing what they do in vivo and creating a falsely elevated lactic acid and ethanol and a falsely decreased glucose. When your body lacks oxygen, your muscles will make ethanol and lactic acid, too. We can test for it.

Answer 3

This question is a serious one (like having a separate scientific project devoted to it), and the answer is way beyond the scope of a comment.

However, there is a solution:

Go to https://scholar.google.com/

Type: "pyruvic acid" "ethanol" like this, with quotation marks

Read some abstracts, for free.

If you like the papers, take their doi number

Copy-paste it to: https://sci-hub.se/

And you will be able to download all the articles - for free