Absorption Spectrum

[ender7x77]

I was just wondering if anyone could confirm my anwsers for 2 questions.

 

1)Explain the fluorescence of the chlorophyll bands. Did the spinach leaf fluoresce? If not, why not?

 

The spinach leaf fluoresced because a molecule’s electron reached an excited state, resulting from the absorption of a photon by a pigment, and when this electron returned to its ground state, the resultant accompanying loss of energy is given off as another photon, fluorescence. The graph of the relationship between absorbance and wavelength illustrate this in the drastic drop in absorbance. As the graph suggests, this only occurs once which is why we only saw the fluorescence appear once on the chromatography paper, and thus, demonstrates how the drop in absorbance is an indication of fluorescence.

2) Using the structures in your textbook and the structures for carotene, neoxanthin, violaxanthin, and lutetin explain the differences in Rf values obtained.

 

The structures all differ in a functional group, and thus differ in properties. These differences in structures are enough to affect the ability of the pigments to move up and down the chromatographic strip, which collectively contributes to the differences in Rf values obtained.

 

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. I dont expect people to do both, but really any help is helpful, as this is something I'm not really certain at all about. Thanks!