Photosynthesis Lab

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Photosynthesis stuff
James Harris Introduction This study hopes to determine which photosynthetic pigments are prevalent in spinach plants. These pigments help to carry out the function of photosynthesis which is the process of utilizing light energy to construct sugars. They assist photosynthesis by absorbing light of specific wave lengths. This process leads to the production of one of the most basic forms of energy on our planet. Both light and dark reactions take place during photosynthesis.
As the name implies light reactions depend on light energy while dark reactions depend on temperature. Light reactions take place in the grana thylakoids within the chloroplast cells and use light, ADP, NADP, inorganic phosphate, and water to make oxygen, ATP, and NADPH (Textbook). Dark reactions are also known as carbon-fixation reactions and occur in the stroma of the chloroplasts. Inputs for dark reactions are carbon dioxide, ATP, and NADPH while the outputs are sugar, ADP, NADP+, and inorganic phosphate. The pigments utilized in light reactions are chlorophylls a and b and both occur within the thylakoid sacs of the chloroplasts. The focus of this experiment is to determine which photosynthetic pigments are prevalent in the spinach plant. I hypothesize that chlorophylls a and b will more abundant than other pigments.
Methods …show more content…

This was accomplished by grinding spinach leaves which allowed for us to have the pigments migrate along a piece of filter paper with the help of an organic solvent. The varying masses and polarities of the different pigments causes them to segregate themselves to different areas of the filter paper. The use of a spectrophotometer then assisted in the analysis of each pigment band by returning absorbance values before the data was recorded in a