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Biology Project
Biology Project
PLANTS
A Project Report
Submitted by
Aashray Kotha
In partial fulfillment of the
CBSE GRADE XII
IN
BIOLOGY
AT
2016-17
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Aashray Kotha of grade XII, Bangalore
I n t e r n a t i o n a l A c a d e m y, B a n g a l o r e w i t h r e g i s t e r n u m b e r
_______________________ has satisfactorily completed the project in
Biology on STUDY OF CHLOROPHYLL CONTENT IN VARIOUS
PLANTS, in partial fulfillment of the requirements as prescribed by
CBSE in the year 2016-2017.
Signature of Teacher
in Charge
Signature of the
External Examiner
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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 ( in nanometres ) 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
the protein structure surrounding them.
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.
Although Chlorophyll a is the chief pigment associated with
photosynthesis, other thylakoid pigments like chlorophyll b, xanthophylls
and carotenes are the accessory pigments. They absorb light and transfer
the energy to chlorophyll a.
!
The function of the vast majority of chlorophyll is to absorb light and
transfer that light energy to a specific chlorophyll pair in the reaction
centre of the photosystems.
There are two photosystem unit present photosystem I
(PS I) and photosystem II (PS II) that have their own reaction centers
P700 and P680 respectively.
Within each PS I and PS II their are photochemical light harvesting
systems present which are made up of many pigment molecules bounded
to proteins.
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.
The molecular structure of chlorophyll a consists of a chlorin ring, whose
four nitrogen atoms surround a central magnesium atom, and has several
other attached side chains and a hydrocarbon tail.
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.
EXPERIMENT
Chlorophyll content in various plant species
Aim: To compare and study the chlorophyll content in different plant
species.
Requirements
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
SPINACH
2 FENUGRE
CHLOROPHYLL
A
CHLOROPHYLL
CAROTENE
XANTHOPHYLL
3.4
0.6
1.76 0.5
4.6
4.82
2.92 3.16
EK
3 BOUGAIN
VILLA
4
MINT
5 CABBAGE
3.4
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