{"id":160947,"date":"2023-03-24T18:22:58","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T23:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/using-high-precision-quantum-chemistry-to-study-super-efficient-energy-transfer-in-photosynthesis"},"modified":"2023-03-24T18:22:58","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T23:22:58","slug":"using-high-precision-quantum-chemistry-to-study-super-efficient-energy-transfer-in-photosynthesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/using-high-precision-quantum-chemistry-to-study-super-efficient-energy-transfer-in-photosynthesis","title":{"rendered":"Using high-precision quantum chemistry to study super-efficient energy transfer in photosynthesis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/using-high-precision-quantum-chemistry-to-study-super-efficient-energy-transfer-in-photosynthesis.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Photosynthesis drives all life on Earth. Complex processes are required for the sunlight-powered conversion of carbon dioxide and water to energy-rich sugar and oxygen. These processes are driven by two protein complexes, photosystems I and II. In photosystem I, sunlight is used with an efficiency of almost 100%. Here a complex network of 288 chlorophylls plays the decisive role.<\/p>\n<p>A team led by LMU chemist Regina de Vivie-Riedle has now characterized these chlorophylls with the help of high-precision quantum chemical calculations\u2014an important milestone toward a comprehensive understanding of energy transfer in this system. This discovery may help exploit its efficiency in artificial systems in the future.<\/p>\n<p>The chlorophylls in <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/photosystem\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">photosystem<\/a> I capture sunlight in an antenna complex and transfer the energy to a reaction center. There, the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/solar+energy\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">solar energy<\/a> is used to trigger a redox process\u2014that is to say, a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/chemical+process\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">chemical process<\/a> whereby electrons are transferred. The quantum yield of photosystem I is almost 100%, meaning that almost every absorbed photon leads to a redox event in the reaction center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photosynthesis drives all life on Earth. Complex processes are required for the sunlight-powered conversion of carbon dioxide and water to energy-rich sugar and oxygen. These processes are driven by two protein complexes, photosystems I and II. In photosystem I, sunlight is used with an efficiency of almost 100%. Here a complex network of 288 chlorophylls [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1497,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-energy","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}