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New Bacterium Could Herald Bio-Batteries
Clever Pun writes "According to this BBC article, a newly discovered bacterium is able to convert 'uranium and other radionuclides dissolved in water to solid compounds that can be extracted.' It reduces (adds electrons to) positively charged metal ions, making them insoluble in water (making them easier to clean up), which creates small charges of electricity. It has been speculated that this bacterium could potentially be used in a sort of bio-battery. Matrix v0.1b, anyone?"
This was covered on NPR this past Friday. You can probally find some archive of it if you're interested in hearing it.. try here. It sounded interesting but not quite viable yet based on what I heard.
This sugar eating bacteria battery looks more promising. Runs on sugar and has an 80% conversion efficiency.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Actually, there are quite a few species of bacteria who use this kind of cycle to get their energy. Not a bad thing to colonize layers where respiration won't help. And the ability to specifically reduce heavy metal ions probably comes, as the article implies, from mutations on cytochrome reductases genes.
There is nothing special about this particular bug, except that it was used to gain some insight on how these kinds of bacteria work their magic.
The whole battery idea comes from how we now understand that the "c-type cytochromes" add electrons to the heavy metal ions to newtralize them, and create a small electrical current in the process.
Yes, in theory I would imagine any bacteria that has similar mechanics could be used.
This little fella jsut happened to get the spotlight because it was the first to be studied in depth.
Ref. http://www.geobacter.org/ for some more info
You might also want to read through the talk.origins archive, since I think you might not fully understand how evolution works. (Hint: "survival of the fittest" is a really poor way to describe it.)
=Smidge=
Quite a lot of information about this bacteria (Geobacter sulfurreducens) can be found at the Geobacter project home page.
Human/Ranger/Zangband
That phrase will have new meaning...
Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
The page linking to the NPR audio is here
I have my doubts that this sort of bio-battery will ever be useful on a widespread, large scale.
Even anaerobic resiration by the most efficient organisms yields under 50% of the potential energy in their food. Secondary reactions like this typically occur at a much slower rate than life-sustaining reactions. What this means is that a fairly high amount of nutrients will have to be supplied, and that the resulting current generated will be relatively small compared to the potential energy sent in.
I guess what I'm saying here is "don't expect a miracle bio-powered car from this."
These bacteria will no doubt be useful in cleanup of contaminated sites, though. Perhaps soil could be placed into large decontamination devices, and the resulting electricity could be used for low-output pumps that drip nutrients into the chamber. Then you'd have a useful, self-powered detox device.