Photosynthesis

internal leaf structure

chloroplastsouter membrane

inner membrane

thylakoid

Plant Photosynthesis

Where does the energy come from that

sustains all life?

The Sun!!Well most of it anyway……

Plants

in

Action

Vocabulary• Photosynthesis – the process of capturing and

transforming the energy of sunlight into chemical energy sugars

• Autotrophs – capable of making food from simple inorganic substances (plants)

• Heterotrophs – organism that cannot make their own food (animals)

• Chlorophylls – Photosynthetic pigments (GREEN)

• Chloroplast – are the organelles containing photosynthetic pigments

• Thylakoids – Photosynthetic membranes found in the chloroplast

• Grana – Stacks of Thylakoids (PANCAKES)

• Stroma – Regions (space) between the grana

Chloroplast Terms

• Inner Membrane

• Outer Membrane

• Thylakoid

• Stroma

• Granum

What is photosynthesis?• The process of converting solar energy (light)

into chemical energy (glucose)

• Plants only use water (H2O) and carbon dioxide

(CO2) and light energy to create sugars

(C6H12O6) = chemical energy. (Autotroph)

• Heterotrophs then consume this sugar and

break it apart to get the chemical energy (ATP

from mitochondria) to carry out their life

processes

Photosynthesis

Carbon dioxide + water glucose + oxygensunlight

absorbed by chlorophyll

6CO2 + 6H2O + energy C6H12O6 + 6O2

Day 2 Light and Dark reactions

ATP and NADP-H

• ATP = Adenosine Triphosphate

• ADP = Adenosine Diphosphate

• NADP-H = hydrogen carrier

The 2 stages of photosynthesis

1. Light reactions

- Light reactions absorb sunlight

and convert H20 into O2

and ATP (Energy) + NADPH

2. Dark reactions

- Dark reactions uses CO2 + NADPH+

ATP(energy) to form sugars

(C6H12O6) stored chemical energy

Light rxn Dark rxn