In a recent paper in Life (Basel), Klaus Schmidt-Rohr, Professor of Chemistry, introduces a self-explanatory description of the energetics of photosynthesis in plants, the so-called EZ-scheme. It shows the energies of molecules in kJ/mol instead of the classical Z-scheme’s shifted energy differences that are misleadingly encrypted in volts. Unlike its predecessor, the EZ-scheme includes the Kok cycle in the water-splitting complex, charge separation after photon absorption, and the Calvin cycle with carbohydrate synthesis (in a simplified form). It also shows O2 correctly as a high-energy product, due to its relatively weak double bond, and demonstrates that Photosystem II pumps more of the absorbed photon energy into O2 than into the plant.

This paper provides the first valid explanation of why plants need two different photosystems: PSII mostly extracts hydrogen (as protons plus electrons) from H₂O, producing PQH₂ (plastoquinol), and generates the energetically expensive product O₂, providing little energy directly to the plant. PSI is needed to produce significant chemical energy for the organism, in the form of ATP, and to generate a less reluctant hydrogen donor, NADPH. This work fundamentally revises received notions of the energetics of photosynthesis, by pointing out the classical Z-scheme’s bewildering implication that H2O gives off electrons spontaneously to chlorophyll while releasing energy, and by showing that the concept of energy transport by “high-energy electrons” in photosynthesis is misguided, since energy and electrons flow in opposite directions.

Figure 1 Simplified EZ-scheme of the energetics of photosynthesis in plants, converting H2O and CO2 to O2 and carbohydrate, [CH2O]. The direction of energy transfer and release is indicated by straight red arrows at the top, formal hydrogen transfer by blue dashed curved arrows at the bottom of the diagram. Three dots … indicate omitted redox reactions.