chemistry question #10

Kaycie Nabeta, a 16 year old female from the Internet asks on May 10, 1999,

Q:

Does the location of chlorophyll a in the thylakoid membrane have anything to do with its effectiveness in photosynthesis? Or is it just there because it has access to as much light as possible?
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the answer

Gary Brudvig answered on May 10, 1999, A:

The main reason chlorophyll is used in photosynthesis is because it has very strong absorption of visible light and a long-lived excited state which means that there is enough time to use the light energy to do photochemistry. Chlorophyll is located in the thylakoid membranes because this is where the protein complexes that function in the light reactions of photosynthesis are located.

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