Spinach Photosynthesis Lab Report

This experiment is concerned with identifying photosynthetic pigments found in spinach plants and determining the spectrum of light each absorbs. By using paper chromatography, different pigments of spinach leaves can be separated. The knowledge gained in this experiment is relevant to understanding how the process of photosynthesis works. A Real-world application for this includes the harvesting of clean energy sources, as scientific advances have led the way to artificial photosynthesis on the path to replace fossil fuels (Nath, 237).
Photosynthesis converts light received from the sun into chemical energy known as ATP. Visible light is absorbed by the pigments found in plants. Carbon dioxide and water synthesizes into glucose and oxygen. By doing so, the metabolic activity of cells is powered. It essentially serves as the food for the cell’s processes (Whittingham, 375). Photosynthesis is the base for the nature of animal life and humankind. It does not solely power the life of the cell, but also the life of the earth because it is the
The closest band was identified as chlorophyll b with a green color. The second band was identified as chlorophyll a with a yellow-green color. The third band was xanthophyll with a yellow color. All the actual results are in accordance with the theoretical results, as shown in Table 1.
Chlorophyll a absorbed the most light across all areas of the spectrum from a variety of colors. Chlorophyll b mainly absorbed blue and violet light, but also picks up on some red light; whereas xanthophyll absorbs approximately the same amount of blue and violet light as chlorophyll b, albeit without the addition of red light. The trend of the total amount of light absorbed by all pigments most closely matches that of chlorophyll a because it was the most active in light