Plants do miracles all the time. They take air and turn it into a pear! That banana you are eating is made up of a specially kind of energized air! Tastes good I hope! Essentially, carbon dioxide is incorporated into a five carbon molecule, by the almighty RuBisCo Enzyme.Note that the dice with dots represent the number of carbon atoms in a molecule. The other elements like oxygen and hydrogen are not included for simplification. But note, it takes six trips around this cycle to get enough 'carbon playdough' to make glucose, which can later become an apple or orange.
There is a starting point and ending point, which has a blue flag to show the goal of absorbing carbon dioxide.
Underneath, the caputure of carbon phase, is the Sugar Shuffle, where the molecules that captured that infamous green house gas are replenished.
When you hear about Carbon Dioxide, you might think it's a green house gas, that is true, but it can also be labeled as a food-making-gas.
Amazing but true, when you break down all the bread or rice that you eat, guess what it is turned into...Carbon Dioxide (most of it). Think about it, food is actually energized air! This yummy to be air (CO2) is energized by starlight, aka the Sun.
The process above can be called the Calvin-Benson Cycle or Calvin Cycle.
The one part of the cycle that is hardly ever shown in detail is the regeneration of carbon caputuring molecules in a process called-The Sugar Shuffle. This is where five 3-carbon molecules become three 5-carbon molecules (which can capture carbon dioxide).
 |
| Sugar Shuffle = five 3-Carbon molecules become three 5-Carbons molecules |
No comments:
Post a Comment