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Lab Report : The Photosynthesis

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Summary: The photosynthesis lab is comprised of three short experiments. These experiments showed how to understand and apply the absorbance spectrum and which colors and wavelengths correspond to visible light. In order to fully understand this absorbance spectrum and how to apply it, we initially prepared a substance comprised of acetone, a large spinach leaf and petroleum ether and measured its absorbance in the spectrophotometer. This showed us what wavelengths corresponded to the most absorption of the spinach leaf. It is understood that the least amount of absorbance should occur after 500 nm and the lower the number, the lower the absorbency. Thus, the 700 ranges is the very least amount of absorbency and the results showed us that the lowest amount of absorbance was around 740nm, which is an accurate, representation of this solution. Next, to understand what wavelengths of light drive the light reactions you can visibly see in photosynthesis, we used CMS in a variety of tubes and measured its absorbency under white light, no light, and colored filters such as red and green. We then used the chlorophyll extract we originally prepared and painted this on a chromatography strip. We measured the band distances to find out the number of pigments in the spinach leaf. These processes helped emphasize how the chloroplast pigment extract and chloroplast membrane suspension have different functional capabilities and how photosynthesis works. Methods: This photosynthesis

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