Facts About Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is one of the most important chemical reactions that occurs in the plant, allowing plants to simultaneously create invaluable carbohydrates and produce oxygen that renews our atmosphere. Key to photosynthesis is sunlight, which provides the energy catalysts that sets all the plant's processes into motion.
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Basics
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Plants spend most of their lives working to convert simple elements into usable nutrients. They take in water from the roots and the air, carbon dioxide from the air, and minerals from the soil. But plants cannot process nutrients in these basic forms, so they must convert them into more useful compounds by breaking apart the atoms of these substances and rearranging them into new creations. This is where photosynthesis becomes vital: sunlight provides the energy plants need to rearrange their food sources into more practical compounds.
Chlorophyll
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Photosynthesis depends on a unique pigment called chlorophyll, which plants produce in small factories called chloroplasts. Chlorophyll is a complex molecule that absorbs a wide range of the light spectrum produced by the sun, reflecting back only the green shades of light. This is why cells containing chlorophyll appear green, and why all plants that use photosynthesis show various shades of green on certain parts of their structure. Most chlorophyll is concentrated in leaves or fronds (on those plants that have them), which are placed to receive the maximum amount of sunlight.
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Chemical Conversion
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Light contains energy, and when it is absorbed, this energy usually warms the substance, jostling around molecules into greater motion. In chlorophyll cells, instead of just creating heat the energy is immediately used to start a chemical reaction. The energy gives proteins within the chlorophyll cells the boost they need to produce vital energy. Water molecules are split, producing oxygen while the hydrogen atoms are made into energy molecules such as ATP and NADPH.
ATP
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Photosynthesis is actually a two stage process. The energy molecules created by the help of sunlight are immediately used by the plant in the second stage, which creates a longer lasting form of energy that is more easily manipulated by the plant. The energy molecules created in the first stage are broken apart to provide a needed boost that allows the plants to fuse hydrogen with carbon dioxide absorbed from the air. This produces carbohydrates, which are very useful as storers and carriers of carbon-based energy.
Carbohydrates and Variants
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The most common type of carbohydrate created by photosynthesis is glucose, a sugar molecule used not only in plant life but in most living organisms on earth. Plants can use glucose, store it in their stems for later consumption, or convert it into flowers and fruits that allow them to reproduce. Not all plants use photosynthesis the same way--there are several different types of photosynthesis, usually determined by how the carbon atoms are used and when the two stages of photosynthesis occur.
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