Definition, Significance and Site of Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis sits at the centre of nearly all life on Earth: it is the process by which plants, algae and some bacteria convert solar energy into the chemical energy stored in carbohydrates, releasing oxygen as a byproduct along the way. This section first states the formal chemical definition of the process and its overall balanced equation (13.2.1), then works through why the process matters at a planetary, ecological and economic scale (13.2.2), and finally describes the chloroplast - the specific organelle inside a plant cell where both halves of photosynthesis, the light reaction and the dark reaction, actually take place (13.2.3). Together these three angles - what photosynthesis is chemical …