Photosynthesis
Plants have been pioneering solar energy for millions of years in a process called Photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants produce food. Using leaves as vast solar panels, plants capture the sun’s energy to fuel the conversion of carbon dioxide and water into sugar, less water and oxygen.
Where do the raw materials come from?
Carbon dioxide is usually abundant in the air, being taken up through stomata and gaseous exchange surfaces. Water is mainly supplied through the roots, being drawn up the plant by transpiration, sometimes under immense pressure.
Overview of the Chemistry
There are two distinct parts to photosynthesis – The light dependent reaction and the light independent reaction.
The light dependent reaction causes chemical changes in chloroplasts. Chloroplasts contain the photosynthetic pigment, chlorophyll (the substance that makes most leaves green). The light dependent reaction relies on chlorophyll using solar energy to fuel this chemical change.
In the light independent reaction, the resulting chemicals are then combined with water and carbon dioxide and processed into glucose by enzymes. The resulting glucose is used by the plant to fuel growth with minerals and nutrients taken up from the soil or other substrate.
The entire process is much more complicated and has many more small changes and reactions to reach the final outcome of sugar. That level of detail would be a bit heavy for this aericle, but I may add it later.
What is Chlorophyll?
Chloroplasts are relatively large organelles found in most plants. Chlorophyll is a photosynthetic pigment found in chloroplasts, within thylakoids. This pigmentation makes leaves appear green, which is a direct result of green light being reflected back from the leaf. Hardly any green light is absorbed by most leaves, with the 2 types of chlorophyll absorbing the blue end of the light spectrum, along with the red end of the light spectrum.
Variation
As you would imagine, there are many different combinations of the different types of chlorophyll found in plants. This gives rise to many colour variations, with adaptions being a product of millions of years of natural selection, or from genetic manipulation by plant breeders and horticulturalists.