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    Chlorophyll: Chemical Structure and Absorption Spectra - Biology

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    Luis Garcia
    Chlorophyll is the green pigment found in plants that absorbs light energy. It has a porphyrin ring structure with a magnesium atom at the center. There are two main types, chlorophyll a and b, which differ in their side chains but together absorb different wavelengths of light. Chlorophyll molecules absorb light, exciting electrons that get transferred through reaction centers to drive photosynthesis, with electrons eventually replaced from water to evolve oxygen.

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    Chlorophyll: Chemical Structure and Absorption Spectra - Biology

    Uploaded by

    Luis Garcia
    51 views3 pages
    Chlorophyll is the green pigment found in plants that absorbs light energy. It has a porphyrin ring structure with a magnesium atom at the center. There are two main types, chlorophyll a and b, which differ in their side chains but together absorb different wavelengths of light. Chlorophyll molecules absorb light, exciting electrons that get transferred through reaction centers to drive photosynthesis, with electrons eventually replaced from water to evolve oxygen.

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    Nice article about the chlorophyll absorbancy spectrum

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    Chlorophyll Article

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    Chlorophyll is the green pigment found in plants that absorbs light energy. It has a porphyrin ring structure with a magnesium atom at the center. There are two main types, chlorophyll a and b, which differ in their side chains but together absorb different wavelengths of light. Chlorophyll molecules absorb light, exciting electrons that get transferred through reaction centers to drive photosynthesis, with electrons eventually replaced from water to evolve oxygen.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    51 views3 pages

    Chlorophyll: Chemical Structure and Absorption Spectra - Biology

    Uploaded by

    Luis Garcia
    Chlorophyll is the green pigment found in plants that absorbs light energy. It has a porphyrin ring structure with a magnesium atom at the center. There are two main types, chlorophyll a and b, which differ in their side chains but together absorb different wavelengths of light. Chlorophyll molecules absorb light, exciting electrons that get transferred through reaction centers to drive photosynthesis, with electrons eventually replaced from water to evolve oxygen.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Chlorophyll: Chemical Structure and 

    Absorption Spectra | Biology
    After reading this article you will learn about the chemical structure of 
    chlorophyll. Also learn about the absorption spectra of chlorophyll, with 
    the help of suitable diagrams.

    A green pigment within the chloroplast (Fig. 3.40). It absorbs light 
    energy. 

    Now, it is a question of interest, how these chlorophylls absorb light 
    energy? Chlorophyll traps the light energy, hence called as photoreceptor.
    It is the green pigment found in plants. The basic structure of a 
    chlorophyll molecule is a porphyrin ring, coordinated to a central atom. 
    This is very similar in structure to the heme group found in hemoglobin, 
    except that in heme the central atom is iron, whereas in chlorophyll it is 
    magnesium. Light absorbed by chlorophyll excites the electrons in the 
    ring. 

    Different wavelengths of light excite the electrons by different amounts. 
    Chlorophylls are very effective photoreceptors because they contain a 
    network of alternating single and double bonds and the orbitals can 
    delocalize the electrons and stabilize the structure. Such delocalized 
    polyenes have very strong absorption bands in the visible regions of the 
    spectrum, allowing the plant to absorb the energy from sunlight. 

    There are mainly two types of chlorophyll, named a and b, which differ in
    the composition of a side chain (in a it is ­CH3, while in b it is CHO). 
    Chlorophyll a, gives absorption peaks at 430 nm and 662 nm, while 
    Chlorophyll b gives peaks at 453 nm and 642 nm. The different side 
    groups in the two chlorophylls ‘tune’ the absorption spectrum to slightly 
    different wavelengths. 

    Thus, these two kinds of chlorophylls complement each other in 
    absorbing sunlight. For instance, the light which is not significantly 
    absorbed by chlorophyll a, at 460 nm, will be strongly absorbed or 
    captured by chlorophyll b. The plants can obtain all their energy 
    requirements from the blue and red region of the spectrum, however, 
    there is still a large spectral region, between 500 and 600 nm, where very 
    little light is absorbed (Fig. 3.41). This light is in the green region of the 
    spectrum, and since it is reflected, this is the reason why plants look 
    green. 

    The energy in the ‘excited electrons’ can be passed from one chlorophyll 
    molecule to another, but at the end it will just be lost as fluorescence (i.e. 
    the energy will be re­emitted as light), unless the excited electron itself 
    can be ejected from the chlorophyll molecule. There are two different 
    sorts of reaction centers in plants. In each of these reaction centers, the 
    ejected electron is transferred to an acceptor molecule, which can then 
    pass it on to a different molecule and eventually the electron(s) can be 
    used to fix up carbon dioxide. However, it is not feasible to keep on 
    ejecting electrons from these chlorophyll molecules, electrons must be 
    fed back in to the system to replace those which have been ejected. These
    electrons come from water, resulting in oxygen being evolved. Thus, this 
    reaction is a non­cyclic electron transport chain. 

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