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Jan Baptista van Helmont.
Photosynthesis was partially first discovered in the 1600s, by Jan Baptista van Helmont. He performed a 5-year experiment involving a willow tree which he planted in a pot with soil and placed in a controlled environment. In conclusion Helmont stated that the growth of the tree was the result of the nutrients it had received from the water and not the soil. Helmont’s conclusion was inaccurate but his experiment proved that water contributes to the growth of plants. -
Jan Ingenhousz
Jan Ingenhousz also contributed to the discovery of photosynthesis. performed important experiments in the late 1770s that proved that plants produce oxygen. Ingenhousz placed submerged plants in sunlight and then in the shade. He noticed that small bubbles were produced by the plants when they were in the sunlight. When they were transferred to the shade bubbles were no longer produced by these plants. Ingenhousz later concluded that plants use light to produce oxygen. -
Jean Senebier
In 1796, Jean Senebier demonstrated that plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen with the help of sunlight. Jean Senebier discovered that plants absorb gaseous carbon dioxide and they simultaneously emit gaseous oxygen. -
Julius Robert Mayer
In the 1840s Julius Robert Mayer stated that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. This is known as the first law of thermodynamics. He proposed that plants convert light energy into chemical energy. -
Julius Sachs
From 1862-64 Julius Sachs investigated how starch is produced under the influence of light and in relation to chlorophyll. -
Cornelis Van Niel
In the 1930s Cornelis Van Niel proposed the general equation for photosynthesis:
CO2 + 2H2A + Light energy → [CH2O] + 2A + H2O -
Present
This eventually led to the simplified general equation that is commonly used today:
6CO2 + 6H2O + solar energy —-> C6H12O6 + O2