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Photosystems

Photosynthetic pigments are arranged in light-harvesting clusters or photosystems in the thylakoid membrane. Several hundred accessory pigments capture light energy and channel the energy to a chlorophyll a molecule at the reaction centre of the photosystem.There are two photosystems. Photosystem I occurs mainly in the lamellae and has at its reaction centre P700, a chlorophyll a molecule with a peak wavelength of absorption at 700nm and photosystem II occurs mainly in the thylakoids and accordingly is P680.

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Specification: OCR Biology A (H420), A-level, 5.2.1 Photosynthesis. Topic: Energy for Biological Processes.

Key terms in this lesson

Thylakoid
A flattened, membrane-bound disc within a chloroplast, stacked into grana, where the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis occur.
Chlorophyll
The main photosynthetic pigment, which absorbs light energy, exciting electrons that are used in the light-dependent reactions.

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