Photosynthesis-- A Historical Perspective and the Future

All life on our Earth depends directly or indirectly on “Photosynthesis”, a process by which plants, algae and cyanobacteria convert light energy into chemical energy on a massive scale. As an example:photosynthesis produces biomass equal to two Egyptian pyramids per hour, but this is certainly not enough to meet our future demands.  The process begins by light absorption, within femtoseconds, followed by excitation energy transfer (coherent or otherwise) among antenna molecules to reaction center molecules where charge separation occurs very efficiently within a few picoseconds. Electron and proton transfers follow leading to oxygen evolution and carbon fixation, the bottleneck reactions being of the order of tens of milliseconds. The problem before us is how to meet the challenge of dwindling resources, increasing [CO2], and global warming, facing us all. Improvements in natural photosynthesis as well as indulgence in artificial photosynthesis are being vigorously pursued. Time is ripe for biologists, physicists, chemists, and engineers to form teams to work together to solve the problem sooner than later. In this presentation, Govindjee plans to interweaveevolution of the basic concepts, historical developments, stories of people involved, including some Nobel laureates, and the future directions for the benefit of the human race.