Spinach could allow scientists to create alternative energy more powerful than Popeye's bulging arms.
The leafy green could help give scientists the ability to convert sunlight into clean alternative fuel, Purdue University reported. A research team is using spinach to study proteins involved in photosynthesis.
"The proteins we study are part of the most efficient system ever built, capable of converting the energy from the sun into chemical energy with an unrivaled 60 percent efficiency," said Yulia Pushkar, a Purdue assistant professor of physics involved in the research. "Understanding this system is indispensible for alternative energy research aiming to create artificial photosynthesis."
In the process of photosynthesis plants use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into hydrogen-storing carbohydrates and oxygen. Creating this process artificially could lead to the conversion of solar energy into renewable fuels.
University students extracted a protein complex called Photosystem II from spinach. Once the protein has been extracted it is excited with a laser; the changes in the electron configuration are recorded.
"These proteins require light to work, so the laser acts as the sun in this experiment," Pushkar said. "Once the proteins start working, we use advanced techniques like electron paramagnetic resonance and X-ray spectroscopy to observe how the electronic structure of the molecules change over time as they perform their functions."
Photosystem II is a player in the process that splits water molecules into oxygen, protons, and electrons. The oxygen-evolving complex goes through five states in which four electrons are extracted.
The team used X-ray crystallography to reveal structural changes between the first and third of these states as well as electron paramagnetic resonance to see the configuration of molecules.
"The electronic configurations are used to confirm what stage of the process Photosystem II is in at a given time," Pushkar said. "This information is kind of like a time stamp and without it the team wouldn't have been able to put the structural changes in context."
