A good yield of photosynthesis for agricultural crops in brightsunlight is 20kg of carbohydrate (for example, sucrose) per hectareper hour. (1 hectare = 104 m2.) The netreaction for sucrose formation in photosynthesis can be written
12CO2(g) + 11H2O(l) --->C12H22O11(s) +12O2(g)
a) Use standard enthalpies of formation to calculateΔH0 for the production of 1 mol of sucrose at 25 Cby the reaction above.
b) Calculate the energy equivalent of photosynthesis that yields20kg of sucrose (hectare h)-1.
c) Bright sunlight corresponds to radiation incident on the surfaceof Earth at about 1 kW m-2. What percentage of thisenergy can be "harvested" as carbohydrate in photosynthesis?