Chlorophyll is a green pigment, present in all green plants, which is responsible for the

absorption of light to provide energy for photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process by which
green plants make carbohydrates by combining water and CO2 using sunlight energy absorbed
by chlorophyll in the chloroplasts. Oxygen is released as a by-product. The first formed
carbohydrate is glucose. The formula for photosynthesis is 6CO2 + 6H2O  C6H12O6 + 6O2.
Chlorophyll is needed for photosynthesis because Chlorophyll is the molecule that absorbs
sunlight and uses its energy to synthesis carbohydrates from CO2 and water. This process is
known as photosynthesis and is the basis for sustaining the life processes of all plants. The
energy plants have from water and light is converted from light energy to chemical bond energy.
In this lab the leaf is dipped in hot water to burst the cells in the leaf, then is placed in a test tube
with alcohol for leaf to decolorize for the iodine to react with starch to see where the starch is
present in the leaf. In the leaf the green areas where starch is present turned blue black when
iodine is placed on the leaf and the places without green remained the colour of the iodine
(yellow). This also happened in the totally green leaf. Plants store glucose as the polysaccharide
starch, when starch is mixed with iodine in water, a blue black colour is formed,
starch/iodine complex is also formed.