How to turn chlorophyll red

What colour is chlorophyll? Obviously its green. After all chlorophyll is the pigment in leaves that absorbs the Sun's rays in the first step of photosynthesis. It reflects the green light which is why the leaves are that colour. But what colour is chlorophyll under UV light?

You'll need.

• Some green leaves, spinach works well.
• A pestle and mortar
• A clear spirit like gin or vodka (best to ask an adult before using this)
• An ultra violet torch 
• A glass 
• Some kitchen roll

What to do.

1. Put a few leaves in the mortar.
2. Pour in about 20ml of gin
   
   
   
3. Gently mash it all up with the pestle until the chlorophyll dissolves in the alcohol and the liquid goes green.
4. Filter the bits out of the chlorophyll extract by pouring it through some kitchen roll and into a glass.
   
   
   
5. Now shine the UV light through your green liquid. You'll notice that where the UV light passes through the chlorophyll extract a reddish light is emitted. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   What's going on?
   Chlorophyll fluoresces, this means that it absorbs light of one colour and emits it as another. So in this case the UV light gets converted into red light by the chlorophyll. You wouldn't notice this effect in leaves because the chlorophyll is bound up with a huge amount of protein machinery that the plant needs for photosynthesis. These proteins take the energy emitted by the chlorophyll and pipe it into complex pathways that result in the plants using the suns energy to grow. But strip away the proteins, using some alcohol, and that energy gets emitted as red light instead.