I have a question about chlorophyll.

chillmanjr · Post by **chillmanjr** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:34 pm

I was thinking about a science fair project for 8th grade and I already talked to my teacher about it and he said it was a good idea but didn't know if it was possible. I wanted to know if it was possible to extract chlorophyll from a plant then feed it to a different plant to see what happens to that plant. Any kind of response would be greatly appreciated.

Louise · Post by **Louise** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:45 am

chillmanjr wrote:I was thinking about a science fair project for 8th grade and I already talked to my teacher about it and he said it was a good idea but didn't know if it was possible. I wanted to know if it was possible to extract chlorophyll from a plant then feed it to a different plant to see what happens to that plant. Any kind of response would be greatly appreciated.

Chlorophyll can be extracted from plants in a pure form; I've seen it done. However, the method of extraction is probably beyond a high school student. [It isn't hard, it just requires a lot of equipment you probably don't have, is pretty low yeilding, and is VERY messy. Oh, and it smells really bad.]

I'm not sure that plants will absorb chlorophyll though. I think the chlorophyll probably decomposes in the soil and then the plant will absorb whatever it needs. I'm not an expert on botany; have you done any research that suggests that the plant could absorb chlorophyll? Lastly, what do you expect would happen if a plant had extra chlorophyll? I'm not sure what you are testing.

Why don't you look at some of the other botany projects:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... ?from=Home

A project ranked "6" or "7" should be suitable for an 8th grader. 8-10 may be too hard and 1-5 might be too easy.

Hope this helps, and let us know what you decide.

Louise

chillmanjr · Post by **chillmanjr** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:44 pm

Thanks for taking time to answer my question. Is it possible to obtain chlorophyll purely in any other way, and if not, what kind of equipment would the other way take. I was just wondering so I could tell that to my teacher.

MelissaB · Post by **MelissaB** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:01 pm

There are 'chlorophyll supplements' sold on the web, but a little bit of digging suggests that these are not pure chlorophyll--rather, they're just the results of putting something like wheat grass into a blender. I don't know if they would help you or not, but like Louise I don't think the plants would absorb the chlorophyll directly. Remember, plants have cell walls, so it would be very difficult for them to transport anything as big as a chlorophyll molecule into their cells.

Louise · Post by **Louise** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:09 pm

chillmanjr wrote:Thanks for taking time to answer my question. Is it possible to obtain chlorophyll purely in any other way, and if not, what kind of equipment would the other way take. I was just wondering so I could tell that to my teacher.

I think it is expensive to buy pure. I'll post a procedure here tomorrow (because I don't have the references here), but you need liquid nitrogen, solvents (DMSO or acetone), a rotovap, a silicia column and access to some sort instrument to measure purity (ideally an NMR, but a uv-VIS spectrometer might work). I think you get a few 100 mg for a few hundred grams of plant material. Usually people use algae, since it is very high in chlorophyll.

But, you never answered my questions... why do you think this will work? How are you planning to measure this? Depending on your hypothesis there may be another project you can do. Did you look at the other plant-related projects at sciencebuddies?

Louise

chillmanjr · Post by **chillmanjr** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:37 pm

Yes, I looked at the other project ideas and they didn't really appeal to me and only one of them had to do with chlorophyll and it was just about looking at the chlorophyll. I was thinking about either putting the chlorophyll in water and feeding to the plants, but since you said it would probably get decomposed I thought some more and maybe I could spray it on the leaves of the plant to see if it grew more colorfully or bigger.

Louise · Post by **Louise** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:04 pm

chillmanjr wrote:Yes, I looked at the other project ideas and they didn't really appeal to me and only one of them had to do with chlorophyll and it was just about looking at the chlorophyll. I was thinking about either putting the chlorophyll in water and feeding to the plants, but since you said it would probably get decomposed I thought some more and maybe I could spray it on the leaves of the plant to see if it grew more colorfully or bigger.

Chlorophyll isn't water soluble. It is found in the membrane/lipid portion of plants, so is soluble in fats/oils.

Again, why do you think chlorophyll would be absorbed by the leaves/roots/whatever? How do plants get their nutrients? Look at the science project guide. Your hypothesis needs to be based on some scientific knowledge. Right now, your ideas are pretty unfocussed. You don't know a lot about chlorophyll or about how plants work, your plan is "apply and see what happens", and this is not a good way to do a project. Why do you want to use chlorophyll? What interests you abut it? I'm sure you can come up with a great project with some more research and some more thought.

Post back here after you've thought about this a little.

Louise

Louise · Post by **Louise** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:26 am

This website has a procedure for the extraction of chlorophyll as well as some useful information about this pigment.

http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/robertson ... ments.html

The algae spirulina has very high chlorophyll content and is used in health food products. You can buy it; just make sure to by pure spirulina and not a pill or drink containing it.

Again, I think your experiment as proposed isn't great and will cause you a lot of trouble later on. I think you can develop a much better experiment, but I did promise you this information.

Hope to hear some new ideas from you.

Louise

chillmanjr · Post by **chillmanjr** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 10:45 am

Can chlorophyll only help to color plants, or is it possible to put in a cup of oil and see if it colors that. If I can't find a way to make a plant absorb the chlorophyll, because itnow seems like a pretty impossible task, I might just have observe what I stated before and how many chloroplasts are in a cell. I was also thinking about controlling the amount of sunlight each plant gets to see how much sunlight a plant needs to do photosynthesis. This could be completed by putting a healthy plant into a box with a candle to see if there is enough oxygen for the candleto stay burning. I read that that was the way scientists first discovered photosynthesis.

Louise · Post by **Louise** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:05 am

chillmanjr wrote:Can chlorophyll only help to color plants, or is it possible to put in a cup of oil and see if it colors that.

It should dissolve in oil. It may be that you could do a very crude extraction using a blender and oil and plants. However, you would get everything that is soluble in oil, and not just the chlorophyll. It would probably have hundreds of different chemicals extracted. Also, I don't think that the oil mixture will be absorbed by the plant. I don't know though.

I was also thinking about controlling the amount of sunlight each plant gets to see how much sunlight a plant needs to do photosynthesis. This could be completed by putting a healthy plant into a box with a candle to see if there is enough oxygen for the candleto stay burning. I read that that was the way scientists first discovered photosynthesis.

I think this is an interesting idea. Also, if you remember the structure of chlorophyll, it has a metal Mg in the middle of the ring. You could grow your plants with different amounts of Mg (for example, hydroponic methods allow you to controll exactly how much nutrients the plants get. Just remember, tap water has metals in it too!)

Some plants are deliberately prevented from photosynthesis to make vegetables. For example, white asparagus is the same as green, just not allowed sunlight, so cannot make chlorophyll.

I like the way you are thinking!

Louise

chillmanjr · Post by **chillmanjr** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:34 pm

Sounds great! Thank you soooooo much for all of your help. I greatly appreciate it.

Louise · Post by **Louise** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:11 pm

chillmanjr wrote:Sounds great! Thank you soooooo much for all of your help. I greatly appreciate it.

No problem. Chlorophyll is a really cool molecule and the work of the photosythetic reaction center is one of the most amazing processes in nature! I'm glad that you are interested in this really amazing molecule.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Louise

I have a question about chlorophyll.

I have a question about chlorophyll.

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