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PLANTS
A Project Report
Submitted by
ABHISHEK MATH
2014-15
CERTIFICATE
Signature of Teacher
in Charge
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am highly indebted to Mrs. Nikhila and Mrs. Gayathri for the constant
supervision, providing necessary information and support in completing
the project. I would like to express my gratitude towards them for their
kind co-operation and encouragement.
Finally, I extend my gratitude to one and all who are directly or indirectly
involved in the successful completion of this project work.
Signature of the
Candidate
TABLE OF CONTENTS
S no
Topic
Page number
Introduction
Objective
Theory
Experiment
11
Procedure
13
Observations
17
Result
18
Bibliography
19
INTRODUCTION
Chlorophyll is a green photosynthetic pigment found in chloroplasts of
organisms like cyanobacteria, algae and plants. Its name is derived from
the Greek words chloros, meaning green and phyllon meaning leaf.
First isolated by Joseph BienaimeCaventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in
1817, chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, playing a vital
role in nature. Chlorophyll is critical in photosynthesis, where the green
pigment plays the role of absorbing energy for plants to use.
There are at least seven types of chlorophyll known as chlorophyll a, b, c,
d, e, bacteriochlorophyll and bacterioviridin. Chlorophyll absorbs light
most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum,
followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and
near green portions of spectrum, hence green colour of chlorophyllcontaining tissues.
Chlorophyll molecules are specifically arranged in and around
photosystems that are embedded in thylakoid membranes of chloroplasts.
In these complexes, the vast majority of chlorophyll serves two primary
functions : to absorb light, and to transfer that light energy by resonance
energy transfer to a specific chlorophyll pair in the reaction centre of the
photosystems.
The two currently accepted photosystem units are photosystem II and
photosystem I, which have their own distinct reaction centre chlorophylls,
named P680 and P700, respectively. These pigments are named after the
wavelength ( innanometres ) of their red peak absorption maximum. The
identity, function and spectral properties of the types of chlorophyll in
each photosystem are distinct, and determined by each other and
OBJECTIVE
THEORY
Chlorophyll is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and chloroplasts
of algae and plants. It is a critical biomolecule in the process of
photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. It is
present in the chloroplasts thylakoid membrane. Within the chloroplast,
there is a membranous system of grana, stroma lamellae and fluid stroma.
The membrane system is responsible for trapping light energy and for
synthesis of ATP and NADPH.
The colour of leaves we see is not due to a single pigment but due to four
pigments namely chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, xanthophylls and
carotene.
Chlorophyll a
Chlorophyll a is essential for most photosynthetic organisms to
release chemical energy but is not the only pigment that can be used for
photosynthesis. One molecule of chlorophyll a forms the reaction centre.
It absorbs energy from wavelengths of violet and red light.
Chlorophyll b
Chlorophyll b helps in photosynthesis by absorbing light energy.It is
more soluble than chlorophyll a in polar solvents because of
its carbonyl group. Its color is yellow, and it primarily absorbs blue light.
In land plants, the light
harvesting antennae around photosystem II contain the majority of
chlorophyll b.
Xanthophylls
Xanthophylls (originally phylloxanthins) are yellow pigments that form
one of two major divisions of the carotenoid group. Their molecular
structure is similar to carotenes, which form the other major carotenoid
group division, but xanthophylls contain oxygen atoms,
while carotenes are purely hydrocarbons with no oxygen.
Carotenes
Carotene is an orange photosynthetic pigment important
for photosynthesis. Carotenes are all coloured to the human eye.
EXPERIMENT
Chlorophyll content in various plant species
Requirements
Chemicals required:
Acetone
Diethyl ether
Petroleum ether
Methyl alcohol
Calcium carbonate
Potassium hydroxide
Distilled water
PROCEDURE
Take 10g of fresh leaves in pestle and crush it with 4ml 80%
acetone. Add a little CaCO3 and again crush it. Filter the extract in
a Buchner funnel. The filtrate is called acetone extract and it is rich
in chlorophyll and carotenoids.
Take 4ml of the acetone extract and add petroleum ether. Shake
funnel gently.
Add water and shake again. Two layers will be formed. Upper
containing petroleum ether will contain chlorophyll a and carotene.
To the upper layer add 1.5ml 30% methyl alcohol and KOH. Add
water and shake funnel.
Two layers are obtained. Upper has chlorophyll a and lower has
carotene.
To the lower methyl alcohol layer add 5ml diethyl ether and shake.
Add water slowly 1ml at a time. Two layers are obtained. The
upper layer is the diethyl ether layer and lower contains methyl
alcohol.
Discard lower layer.
To the upper layer add 1.5ml 30% methyl alcohol-KOH. Shake
funnel and add water.
Two layers are obtained.
OBSERVATION TABLE
TYPE OF LEAF
WEIGHT OF PIGMENT
NO
CHLOROPHYLL
CHLOROPHYLL
CAROTENE
XANTHOPHYLL
SPINACH
A
3.4
B
0.6
4.6
4.82
FENUGREEK
1.76
0.5
2.92
3.16
BOUGAINVILLA
1.75
0.37
2.23
2.37
MINT
3.4
1.02
4.73
4.63
CABBAGE
3.59
0.55
5.3
4.9
RESULT
Each type of leaf has various levels of pigments based on its genetic
constitution, exposure to light, age, season, wind, precipitation,
photosynthetic rate, respiration rate, and protein level.
Out of the five leaves tested, cabbage had the highest level of Chlorophyll
a, and Bougainvillea the lowest. The highest level of Chlorophyll b was
present in mint while the lowest level was present in mint while the
lowest level was present in Bougainvillea. Cabbage had the most
Carotene and Bougainvillea had the least. Cabbage also had the greatest
level of Xanthophylls and Bougainvillea had the least.
As seen clearly, chlorophyll value decreases with leaf senescence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
* www.wikipedia.org
* www.google.com
* www.howstuffworks.com
* www.letsmakesciencefun.com