An interdisciplinary team of scientists discover a new form of Chlorophyll which could lead to new developments of new methods to produce biofuels. The team had a group of scientists<\/p>\n
–\u00a0 Dr Martin Schliep and Dr Zhengli Cai (University of Sydney, Australia)
\n–\u00a0\u00a0 Associate Professor Robert Willows (Macquarie University, Australia);
\n–\u00a0 Professor Brett Neilan (University of New South Wales, Australia)
\n– Professor Hugo Scheer (University of Munich, Germany)<\/p>\n
These scientists have worked together and characterized the absorption properties and chemical structure of chlorophyll f, making it the fifth known type of chlorophyll molecule on Earth. Believe it or not, many scientists have been researching on this for over 60 years now.<\/p>\n
Chlorophyll\u00a0 is an important green pigment found in algae which\u00a0 helps the\u00a0 algae to obtain energy from light. It\u00a0 was earlier believed that these pigments absorbs light more strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum followed by the red spectrum and so on. However, this new discovery extends that range all the way to the red end of that spectrum.<\/p>\n
This finding could lead to the development of new methods to produce biofuels more efficiently. The efficiency of the photosynthesis is entirely dependent on the type and intensity of sunlight the algae is exposed to and\u00a0 this discovery could thus help us to probably use a suitable\u00a0 algae strain or probably engineer a strain which can accumulate lipids in its cells and produce biofuels even when its exposed to multiple types of light.<\/p>\n
If the algae is able to make effective utilization of a wider portion of the light spectrum, than it naturally produces a lot more energy, which in turn allows it to grow faster.<\/p>\n
There\u00a0 are four forms of Chlorophyll: Chlorophyll a Chlorophyll b Chlorophyll c1 Chlorophyll c2 Chlorophyll d.\u00a0 This newly discovered chlorophyll\u00a0 called Chlorophyll f utilizes lower energy than any other knows chlorophyll. This form of\u00a0 chlorophyll was first identified rather accidentally discovered in what is called stromatolites. Stromatolites are basically layered structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding\u00a0 of sedimentary grains by blue-green algae.<\/p>\n
The samples used in this particular investigation were collected from the Hamelin pool, in the Shark Bay of western Australia. The research team\u00a0 believes that microorganisms known as filamentous cyanobacteria are responsible for the production of chlorophyll f in stromatolites.<\/p>\n