Robin Hill (biochemist)
Sir Robert Hill ( born April 2, 1899 in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, † 15 March 1991) was a British biochemist.
Hill studied from 1919 to 1922 chemistry at Cambridge University, England. He was acquired by the university after his studies. He worked at the " Department of Biochemistry " at the University of Cambridge. In 1932 he began his work on photosynthesis. From 1943 to 1966 he was a member of the "Agricultural Research Council ".
Life's work
In 1939, Robert Hill stated that isolated chloroplasts in the presence of reducing compounds (eg, iron oxalate, potassium hexacyanoferrate ( III) ( ferricyanide ), benzoquinone release oxygen under the influence of light. The reaction went as Hill reaction in the literature.
The reaction formula of his theory is:
A is an electron acceptor, for example, Iron (III ) compounds. The reaction equation would then read as follows:
This process is associated with a preceding photolysis of water.
That finding Hills was finally proved that:
- Oxygen without concomitant reduction of the carbon dioxide produced
- Oxygen is formed from water and not from carbon dioxide
- The enzymes of photosynthesis are localized in the chloroplasts
- If the light reaction by the transfer of an electron to an electron acceptor to a chemical energy gradient
The statement that the oxygen released from the cleavage of the water is clear, was later confirmed by M. Randall, Samuel Ruben, Martin Kamen and JL Hyde. They used heavy oxygen water ( H2O18 ) which has been cleaved by a chlorella cell suspension. This heavy oxygen could be detected. Efraim Racker ( Cornell University, Ithaca, NY) found that the light energy can be replaced by the addition of high-energy compounds.