Leaf Pigments and Chromatography — NEET Biology
✅ Asked in NEET 2023Looking at plants have you ever wondered why and how there are so many shades of green in their leaves – even in the same plant? We can look for an answer to this question by trying to separate the leaf pigments of any green plant through paper chromatography. A chromatographic separation of the leaf pigments shows that the colour that we see in leaves is not due to a single pigment but due to four pigments: Chlorophyll a (bright or blue green in the chromatogram), chlorophyll b (yellow green), xanthophylls (yellow) and carotenoids (yellow to yellow-orange). Let us now see what roles various pigments play in photosynthesis.
NTA tests whether students can identify and classify the four photosynthetic pigments by their colors in paper chromatography: Chlorophyll a (blue-green), Chlorophyll b (yellow-green), Xanthophylls (yellow), and Carotenoids (yellow-orange). Students often confuse the order of pigment separation or mix up their colors in the chromatogram. The key trap is remembering that green leaves contain multiple pigments, not just one, and distinguishing between the yellow pigments (Xanthophylls vs Carotenoids). To score correctly: memorize the exact color descriptions and recall that all four pigments work together in light absorption during photosynthesis, with Chlorophyll a and b being primary while xanthophylls and carotenoids are accessory pigments.
(NEET 2023) Match List-I with List-II: List-I: A. Chlorophyll a B. Chlorophyll b C. Xanthophylls D. Carotenoids List-II: I. Yellow to Yellow-orange II. Yellow-green III. Bright or blue-green IV. Yellow Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Through deep analysis of NEET and NTA, 88 of 90 questions from the NEET 2026 paper were matched straight from the MedicNEET Biology question bank.
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