Explain van niel's hypothesis and describe how it contributed to our current understanding of photosynthesis?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by VotersIngenhousz's hypothesis that photosynthesis produces oxygen by splitting carbon dioxide was refuted about 150 years later by the Dutch-born microbiologist Cornelius van Niel (1897-1985) in America. Van Niel studied photosynthesis in anaerobic bacteria, rather than in higher plants. Like higher plants, these bacteria make carbohydrates during photosynthesis. Unlike plants, they do not produce oxygen during photosynthesis and they use bacteriochlorophyll rather than chlorophyll as a photosynthetic pigment. Van Niel found that all species of photosynthetic bacteria which he studied required an oxidizable substrate. For example, the purple sulfur bacteria use hydrogen sulfide as an oxidizable substrate and the overall equation for photosynthesis in these bacteria is:

On the basis of his studies with photosynthetic bacteria, van Niel proposed that the oxygen which plants produce during photosynthesis is derived from water, not from carbon dioxide. In the following years, this hypothesis has proven true. Van Niel's brilliant insight was a major contribution to our modern understanding of photosynthesis