INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

KOLIBRY KONSTRUKTOR EDUCATION-SA EDUCATION WINOGRAD CHONDRO VIDEO-2 APIS THEBAS ARISS-2 VIDEO-3 ARISS-3 SEEDS GRAPHABOX BUGENERGY BOP ESD ARISS-4 CHROPHYL MATI-75 TOP PICTURE ARISS-TV MAI-75 FIZIKA-OBRAZOVANIE

	INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION EXPERIMENTS AND RESEARCHES
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON THE RUSSIAN SEGMENT EDUCATIONAL AND HUMANITARIAN PROJECTS BSM Project CENTENARIO EXPERIMENT CHROPHYL SE Research Manager: BSA (Brazil)

Experiment CROPHYL forms part of the scientific research program performed by Brazilian Astronaut Marcos C. Pontes (BSA) on the Russian Segment of the ISS in the frame of CENTENARIO Brazilian Soyuz Mission Project. The Brazilian Space Agency is a customer of the preparation and implementation of the research program.

USED SCIENCE HARDWARE:

CCM kit which includes:

Experimental chambers (2 pc)
CCM flash card
CCM registration sheets

USED ONBOARD HARDWARE

Camera Nikon D1у

PURPOSE:

Observation of the chlorophyll chromatography process in zero-g conditions with an educational view.

OBJECTIVE:

Transmission of a mixture of pigments through a layer of colorless sorbent and registration of colored areas of chromagrams.

EXPERIMENT RESULT:

Information on the chlorophyll chromatography recorded on the flash card and registration sheets.

Two labeled sealed experimental chambers are used in the experiment. Each chamber contains a sheet of chromatographic paper and a syringe filled with a chlorophyll solution. Chlorophyll is produced from leaves of a Brazilian plant and dissolved in ethyl alcohol. The chlorophyll chromatography activation is performed through solution injection to the chromatographic paper. As molecules in chlorophyll pigments have different characteristics (such as size and dissolubility), they move with different velocities over the paper sheet under the effect of solvent (ethylene glycol in this case). Chlorophyll has different pigments (carotenes, xanthophylls, chlorophyll Ю and chlorophyll b) of a typical color. When chlorophyll solution passes through chromatographic paper, molecules of each of pigments behave differently, that results in a phenomenon similar to a "rainbow". As the gravity influences the capillary effect, different chromatograms will be received in zero-g conditions and on the ground. To register the chlorophyll chromatography process, photography performed by onboard aids of the Russian segment is used.

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