Lab Experiment: Paper Chromatography

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Conclusions

Experiment one was conducted to show the separation of plant pigments using a process called paper chromatography. The significance of this lab was to show different types of pigments and discover which pigments would have the highest band along the filter paper. Experiment one of the lab exhibited that chlorophyll a (figure 1) would display the highest band of pigments on the filter paper when using the paper chromatography process rather than chlorophyll b, xanthophyll and carotenoids showing higher bands of pigments.

The results in figure one present that the pigment xanthophyll in a magnolia leaf is a dark yellow pigment in magnolia that does not travel very far during the paper chromatography process. The yellow carotenoids …show more content…

Although my initial hypothesis was supported by my results, an experimental error occurred during the first 8 minutes of the experiment. The experimental error occurred because the spectrometer was continuously zeroed out by a fellow lab partner which made the results for the first 8 minutes in accurate (Table 1). The overall all results for experiment two relate to the bigger picture in biology because without natural or artificial light magnolia leaves and many other organisms that use the process of photosynthesis cannot thrive. Thylakoids in plants are important because without these sacs inside chloroplast, light reactions would not be able to take place in photosynthesis.

References

Berry, J. O., Yerramsetty, P., Zielinski, A. M., & Mure, C. M. (2013). Photosynthetic gene expression in higher plants. (). Dordrecht: Springer Science & Business Media. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11120-013-9880-8

Dondelinger, R. M. (2012). THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ... liquid chromatography systems. Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology, 46(4), 299-304. Retrieved from

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