What is the role of chlorophyll in plants?

1. 85

   Vellurposted 13 years ago

   What is the role of chlorophyll in plants?

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2. 87

   Taxusbaccataposted 13 years ago

   Chlorophyll is vital for photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light.

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   jill of alltradesposted 13 years ago

   Chlorophyll is a chemical that traps the energy coming from the sun and converts this energy into a form that is useful to the plants. Plants then use this energy to make their own food (like starch and other sugar containing food in their fruits or roots) as well as power their other functions.  We people, and other animals therefore get our own supply of energy when we eat the food made by plants.

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   eternals3ptemberposted 13 years ago

   Cholorphyll contains a magnesium ion. When light strikes the ion some electrons jump off the ion and become involved in a series of steps producing energy molecules for the cell, including ATP, before returning in the cycle back to the magnesium. It takes light energy, and allows plants to make chemical energy.

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   shara63posted 13 years ago

   Ther role of chlorophyll is very similar to that of RBC (Red Blood Cells) in vertibrates ...means of delivering oxygen (O2) to the body tissues via the blood flow through the circulatory system. They take up oxygen in the lungs or gills and release it while squeezing through the body's capillaries.....same way
   
   Chlorophyll is vital for photosynthesis , which allows plants to absorb energy from light... chlorophyll serves two primary functions. that is to absorb light and transfer that light energy by resonance energy transfer to a specific chlorophyll pair in the reaction center of the photosystems. This reaction is how plants produce O2 gas, and is the source for practically all the O2 in Earth's atmosphere.

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6. 57

   lonwrightposted 13 years ago

   Chlorophyll is what allows plants (and other organisms with it such as algae and cyanobacteria) to do the synthesis part of photosynthesis.  When the cell combines the small molecules of carbon dioxide and water into the larger molecules of glucose, the chemical bonds that hold these glucose molecules together require energy.  That energy comes from chlorophyll's ability to remove electrons from water molecules and use light energy to boost their energy.  (In aquatic plants you can see oxygen bubbles accumulate on the leaves.  This oxygen comes from the water  molecules that were split.)
   
   The energy in these high-energy electrons is used to make ATP, and as part of hydrogen atoms that get bonded into the glucose molecule.  The photosynthesizing cell is able to convert some of the light energy that reaches its surface into the bonds of an energy-rich molecule--glucose.  The glucose may get converted into still larger molecules, such as cellulose (in plant cell walls) or starch.
   
   When the plant cell (or a cell from an animal that has eaten it) later breaks the glucose molecule down, some of the energy released when the bonds are broken is used by the cell to perform work, such as moving molecules across membranes or building other, larger molecules.  The process where cells release energy form glucose in the presence of oxygen is call cellular respiration.

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