How do plants produce oxygen?

This is an important question that’s extremely important for human life. The reason for this is very basic. Plants use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water to oxygen and carbohydrates in a process known as photosynthesis. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide; therefore, plants are absolutely necessary for human life.

Photosynthesis is a complicated chemical process that relies on chlorophyll, a pigment prevalent in plant leaves, and enzymes, which are essentially biological catalysis. The steps in the process have been worked out by biochemists over the years, but the simple explanation is that photosynthesis occurs in two basic steps. The first step involves light energy being absorbed and then being used to make ATP or Adenosine triphosphate and NADPH or Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate. These two molecules store the energy to be used in the second step, which uses these two molecules to break down carbon dioxide into oxygen and water. This is a simple explanation for a much more complicated process.

The actual process takes four steps:

1. Light energy transfer occurs in chlorophyll to produce electrons.

2. Electrons are used in photochemical reactions to form an electron donor.

3. Electron donor transport causes ATP synthesis.

4. Carbon is fixed into carbohydrates, resulting in oxygen release.

There are some terms relevant to photosynthesis. The Stroma is the dense fluid in the chloroplast where the conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen takes place. The Thylaloid is a flat sac-like membrane where light energy is converted to chemical energy. Just so you know.

Basically, one can think of plants as breathing in carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen and water. The plant gets the water it needs for the reaction through its roots. The efficiency of this process is 3 to 6 percent. Any absorbed light that isn’t used converts to heat and a small amount of fluorescence. The conversion efficiency depends on the amount of chlorophyll in the plant’s leaves, the light intensity, the frequency of the light, the temperature, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This last condition is important because the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere is increasing. This is why plants are so important to human survival. More plants mean more conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen, the gas that we breathe.

Now you know why trees are so precious. Biological organisms fix 258 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year, mostly in the oceans. This carbon fixation is very important and necessary for human life, especially considering the fact that humans are causing the emission of carbon dioxide at an unprecedented rate.

So, the conclusion is that humans need to plant more trees so that the rate of carbon dioxide conversion can be increased. Sadly, more and more of Earth’s jungles and forests are being destroyed, plowed under for either farming or mining. What a waste! And, a possible avenue to an ecological catastrophe.

Thanks for reading.