Biological complexity:photosynthesis not understood (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 21, 2016, 20:59 (2705 days ago) @ David Turell

The mechanism of photosynthesis contains quantum mechanisms described earlier but is so complex with trace metals it is still not understood how it separates water into hydrogen and oxygen and at the same time the plant uses CO2 in the process of manufacturing plant material:

http://phys.org/news/2016-11-oxygen.html

"The living machinery responsible for photosynthesis - while commonplace and essential to life on Earth - is still not fully understood. One of its molecular mysteries involves how a protein complex, photosystem II, harvests energy from sunlight and uses it to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This process generates the oxygen in the air that we all breathe.

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"Previously, the resting state of photosystem II had been seen in detail using samples that were frozen. In this latest study, the researchers were able to see two key steps in photosynthetic water splitting under conditions as it occurs in nature, a big step to decoding how the process works in detail. A damage-free, room temperature study means there are fewer artifacts in the images, and this gives a clearer picture of how photosystem II works in nature.

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"The water-splitting reaction takes place at a metal catalyst within the photosystem II protein, known as the oxygen-evolving complex, that is made up of four manganese atoms and one calcium atom. The complex uses the energy from light to form pure oxygen from two water molecules. The four manganese atoms are critical in shuffling electrons through the cycle, but it is unknown where exactly in the complex the involved water is located or where the oxygen formation occurs.

"To sort this out, the researchers used ammonia, a water substitute, to narrow down where oxygen atoms from two water molecules combine to form an oxygen molecule. If the ammonia was bound to a site, and the reaction still proceeded, that site is unlikely to be part of the oxygen molecule formation. The results from this study offered a surprise - the data do not seem to support two leading theories for how the reaction proceeds within the oxygen-evolving complex.

"In future studies using this same technique, the researchers hope to capture more images at different steps of the process, which will allow them to further refine the details of the water-splitting reaction.

"'The chemistry is so unusual," co-principal investigator and senior scientist, Vittal Yachandra at Berkeley Lab, said "Learning how exactly this water-splitting process works will be a breakthrough in our understanding, and it can help in the development of solar fuels and renewable energy.'"

Comment: This is part of a perfect balance between plants and animals. We use Oxygen for energy production and plants use CO2. This highly complex quantum reaction is so complex it is very difficult to understand and requires very advanced precise measurements described in the article. Be sure to see the diagram of what is known so far. This had to appear all at once in evolution. it is certainly not clear how any form of partial photosynthesis would work.