Photosynthesis thermodynamic efficiency

These thermodynamic efficiencies may be considered to be on the low side, particularly for land plants. But then it must be noted that this photosynthesis is an activity of a living system for which photosynthesis, or rather the capture of solar energy and its transformation into chemical energy, is only one aspect of life. Supply may exceed demand. Therefore, it may well be that if the only purpose of photosynthesis is the capture of light as an energy source, the efficiencies would have been higher. Support for this conjecture can be found in a calculation by Lehninger [12], who shows that under certain laboratory... 

Lazar, J. G. Ross, J. Experiments on the effects of external periodic variation of constraints on the thermodynamics of an oscillatory system. J. Chem. Phys. 1990, 92, 3579-3589. Kocks, R Ross, J. Bjorkman, O. Thermodynamic efficiency and resonance of photosynthesis in a C3 plant. J. Phys. Chem. 1995, 99, 16483-16489. 

Like in any biological process, temperature directly influences photosynthesis and microorganism growth. Particularly under solar illumination, closed-system PBRs tend to overheat whereas open-system PBRs can suffer evaporation of water imder strong incident irradiance, explained by culture confinement and the strongly exoenergetic photosynthetic growth (Carvalho et al, 2011 Hindersin et al, 2013 Torzillo et al, 1996 Wilhelm and Selmar, 2011). In fact, thermodynamic efficiency over the... 

The first chapter introduces the theoretical framework for constructing predictive knowledge models leading to the calculation of the volumetric and surface rates of biomass production, and the thermodynamic efficiency of the process. Here, the main assumption is that photosynthesis reaction is limited by radiative transfer only. First, the predictive determination of the scattering and absorption properties of photosynthetic microorganisms of... 

Fig. 15 Schematic overview of artificial photosynthesis employing water as electron source and producing hydrogen as fuel product. The valence band (VB, for a semiconducting material) or the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO, for a molecular photosensitizer) must have a reduction potential more positive than the water oxidation catalyst to promote efficient electron transfer. Likewise, the hydrogen evolution catalyst must have a reduction potential more positive than the conduction band (CB, for a semiconducting material) or the lowest unoccupied molecular mbital (LUMO, for a molecular photosensitizer, since this molecular orbital is the most likely to be occupied by an electron upon excitation) for electron transfer to be thermodynamically favorable. Water, a coordinating ligand, can have a significant impact on catalysts with an opcm coordination site. Thus the RHE scale has been included...

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