Researchers have discovered a way of bioengineering algae to produce hydrogen.
Many species of algae and cyanobacteria can use sunlight to split water and release hydrogen, a potentially eco-friendly way of producing hydrogen for fuel cells. No one’s seriously pursued it, however, because the process is secondary to producing compounds the algae need to live.
“The algae are really not interested in producing hydrogen, they want to produce sugar,” MIT postdoctoral candidate and researcher Iftach Yacoby (on the left in the pic) said.
Hydrogen is a byproduct of the production of the sugars the algae need to survive. The scientists say introducing an enzyme into the water in which the algae live suppresses sugar production and increases hydrogen production by about 400 percent without killing the organisms. The research revealed how the production of sugar and hydrogen compete and how the balance could be tipped in favor of making hydrogen.
“It’s one step closer to an industrial process,” said Shuguang Zhang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Biomedical Engineering. “First, you have to understand the science.”
Now that they understand the science, he said, researchers can refine it to make the process commercially viable. That, he said, is “a matter of time and money.” Ultimately, the bioengineered algae could be used to produce hydrogen on a large scale because aglae is abundant, prolific and hardy and there is nothing toxic involved in the process.
“The beauty is in its simplicity,” Yacoby said.
Photo: Patrick Gillooly/MIT. Postdoc Iftach Yacoby, left, and Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT’s Center for Biomedical Engineering, in the lab.
Source: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/05/bio-engineering-algae-to-make-hydrogen/