Organism Uses Solar Energy to Produce Hydrogen

Stan Freeman writes "CNET is reporting that Stanford University researchers have discovered a soil microorganism that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. They are trying to adapt this naturally occurring anaerobic organism into one that can survive in a more normal environment. There is some more information on biological water splitting here on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) web site."

Comments

Err

[rbarreira]

Too bad both links point to the same site, so no CNET news.

Here it is.

First post?

Scientific American Frontiers

[nystagman]

I just saw something about this on Scientific American Frontiers. I don't think it ws this particular critter, but something more run-of-the-mill. Anyway, it was able to produce (indirectly?) a pretty good load of hydrogen while cleaning smokestack outputs. And it tasted goodm too!

Re:Scientific American Frontiers

[lazy genes]

I saw an article on that also.The technology linked NASA in a round about way.As I see it,algae has been known to show effects caused by gravity.It may have the ability to feel gravity.Kinda like having lunar genes along with circadin genes.I have been growing this algae for two years now and have seen this effect.I am trying to link this with pock marks on the ocean floor.I am also interested in genetic timing systems that may exist in this algae.As long as I dont hit the submit button every thing will be allright

Not that impressive

[daeley]

Big deal -- I use bio energy to produce methane every day.

Re:Not that impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

So, shall I send over the team to hook you up to the pipeline?

it will eat all the water

[mozkill]

This is what the Martians did and look what it did to the water on their planet!!

Cost measurements?

[justanyone]

Someone please contact the authors and ask the following questions:

* What is included in the cost measures?
* Do these costs represent capital costs or recurring costs?
* Is the cost per unit biomass (food) at market rates?
* What temperature band does this work under?
* Please cite patent numbers for those granted so we may link to them?
* When you cite, "maximal theoretical electron transport rate" is this presuming some currently unavailable technology or the maximal rate you ran your demonstration at?
* Are you using expensive fuel cell membranes, and if so, is the capital cost of these counted in?
* Are you factoring in any losses due to leakage, probable losses of uptime to the facility from maintenance required by your technology, etc.?

Gotta be exact here, we're a tough crowd for 'free energy' stories, we've seen too many of them...

Re:Cost measurements?

[MindStalker]

Definatly not free energy. Remember you can get energy out of combining oxygen and hydrogen, thefor it must take atleast that much energy to seperate them. The bateria non withstanding require that energy. As stated in the link they get their energy from the sun. So essentially this is a form of solar energy. So the cost calculations need to be in the form of percentage conversions minus what the bateria itself needs to survive, and cost of building a large enough container to collect sunlight. (And your other factors of course).

If it can beat out existing solar energy I'm all for it, but I doubt it.

Re:Cost measurements?

[rbarreira]

Why don't you do it yourself? ;)

And if possible put the replies here :)

Re:Cost measurements?

[Salis]

But it's much cheaper to mass produce organisms that perform electrolysis than to build solar panels.

Especially if the organism is photosynthetic (like the algae they mention). Add water, carbon, nitrate sources, and plenty of sunlight. And the organisms are easily transportable (unlike a bulky solar panel).

Re:Cost measurements?

[leonardluen]

you are forgetting something. it doesn't have to beat current forms of solar energy, that isn't the purpose. it only needs to beat current forms of hydrogen production. it doesn't matter how efficiently it collects solar energy, as long as it costs less resources to use this to produce hydrogen. and for these purposes the sun should be considered a free resource because it will be there whether or not we use it.

Re:Cost measurements?

[linzeal]

It does not need to cost less than current forms of H energy either. All it needs to do is find a nitrate souce from a waste process that makes more money than the current use. Believe you me, there are so many different types of waste sources and uses that this is interesting just for that.

great ..

[torpor]

.. i for one welcome our new "bug that ate the oceans" overlord, and would like to remind them that, as a useless bag of mostly water, i'd be quite happy to disappear into a large puff of gas, at a moments terrible andromeda-zone notice ..

Re:great ..

[dogwelder99]

Unfortunately, the microorganism in its natural state is anaerobic, which means it dies when exposed to large concentrations of oxygen.

Evolution already took care of the problem... the critter gets out of hand producing too much oxygen, it dies in its own poisons before turning the planet into a steaming cinder.

To get around this problem, the researchers produce millions of the bugs and expose them to a low concentration of oxygen. They then take the ones that survive and use them to parent a new generation of bugs.

Oops... never mind.

Re:great ..

[torpor]

Oops... never mind.



if it goes 'oops... never mind', i say kill it. if all we get to is 'oops...', then clearly it has killed us.

Re:great ..

[Alsee]

useless bag of mostly water

Ok, you receive 10 geek demerits.
Go directly outside, do not play go, do not collect 200 quatloos.

The correct geek referrence is ugly bag of mostly water.

-

How will this work?

[ArsonSmith]

Will I be able to fill two tanks in my car up? One with soil and bactiria, the other with water. Then let it do it's thing and I get to go?

Re:How will this work?

[shenanigans]

No, you would (presumably) fill your car with hydrogen, which had been produced earlier by this bacteria somewhere. However, storage technology for hydrogen still has a long way to go, so don't expect this to have any practical implication on your life in the near future.

Oxygen contamination?

[xanthines-R-yummy]

I realize that one problem is creating microbes that are more tolerant of their excretions (ie oxygen and hydrogen). My question is how to separate the oxygen from the hydrogen. Is it easy? Is it cheap? Is it necessary? Does that kind of process totally negate any energy/materials savings microbes would generate?

Re:Oxygen contamination?

[museumpeace]

RTFA.
they have two methods, one cycles the organism in a soup between two fermentation tanks, one enriched in sulfur the other deficient in sulfur. They are trying to engineer an algae that has a form of hydrogenase that does not break down immediately in the presence the oxygen it produces and they have are also tweaking the genes of the algae so it will produce the gas in one tank and get shuttled to the other tank, where the different nutrients allow it to recover for another go-round. The bug should work anaerobically in the sulfate tank producing hydrogen gas there, then photosynthetically in the unsulfered tank, recharging. Net oxygen production occurs in the photosynthetic phase, a separate tank from hydrogen production: the O2 and the H2 are never mixed to begin with Well, thats the theory anyway...can't you read?

Re:Oxygen contamination?

[xanthines-R-yummy]

Yes, I did RTFA's. However, neither you nor TFA's had any indication of how easy or cost-effective their proposals were. I didn't read every paper the lab had ever published, but nothing in the links indicated where they decided that $30/kg was attainable. Also, the articles seem to indicate (although I admit I could be wrong) that O2 is produced in the anaerobic phase, although in smaller amounts than during the photosynthetic phase. It's on page 7 of the first PDF listed. O2 seems to present in the sulfur tank. I don't know how much is present, but it's there.

So again, does anyone know how easy and cheap it is to separate O2 from H2? Is it necessary to separate them for actual use in something like H2-fueled cars, as opposed to inhibiting the algae? I know something about molecular biology, but I'll be the first to admit I don't know anything about engineering...are you always this condescending?

Re:Oxygen contamination?

[r_jensen11]

$30/kg of hydrogen and/or oxygen? Holy shit, sign me up for a life-time membership!

Re:Oxygen contamination?

[museumpeace]

"....O2 seems to present in the sulfur tank. I don't know how much is present...."
You have a point here...we are pretty much just going on pictures here and the arrows seem to indicate that O2 is both emitted and consumed in roughly equal amounts. Its not clear that oxygen is a byproduct in the sulfate stage. Numbers would be helpful.
I'm not always that condescending and I regret the tone of my reply.

I'm not a chem. engineer but what little I know about fuel cells leads me to expect that it IS necessary to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen...the electron exchange in presence of of catalysts must take place across a membrane or barrier in order for a current/voltage to arise. What is less clear to me is whether the UW process can tolerate oxygen as a contaminent in the H2 fed into the reaction vessel.
and no, I have no clue how you'd separate the mixed gases. I do know that H2 and O2 have very distinct absorbtion frequencies...perhaps that would make it possible to draw the mixed gasses through a maser cavity under very low pressure causing one of the gasses to dissociate to atomic or even ionzied state and then use MHD to separate the charged from uncharged gas. This would be somewhat like a mass spectrometer [which would provide separation but at enormous cost]. I won't go any farther out on this limb: seems it would be a total energy loser even if it did work.

Re:Oxygen contamination?

[museumpeace]

a clear description of hydrogen fuel cell shows that hydrogen and oxygen must be separated. The direction and strength of the current depends entirely on the relative purity of the gases [mixed gasses would "short circuit" the cell] and which side the cell is loaded with which gas.

Re:Oxygen contamination?

[chainsaw1]

Oxygen is very reactive and hydrogen is very small and light. There are many oxygen selective membranes which can be used to purify the stream. Hydrogen's ability to diffuse through just about any solid would lend it to use a thin metal plate as a membrane. Last and easiest, it should be simple to find something that O2 will react with that Hydrogen won't (or will to a much lesser degree) that can be regeneratable. Lithium or other alkali metals would probably work well here. (It would have the added benefit of reforming any water in the combined stream back to hydrogen as well).

The first two involve the energy cost of production of the film vs. time or volume gas separated until film failure. The last can be calculated by the reduction of the alkali oxide/hydroxide back to raw alkali (much easier/quicker to do via electrolsis, than of water itself, possibly leading to solar powered electrolsis).

oh boy....

[dvdsmith]

I can see the next SciFi Channel movie now,

DROUGHT

with the usually plot line; older scientist's manipulating the DNA of the organism results in disaster. Enter the late 20's, early 30's young male prodigy who saves the day, along with the help of the older scientist's 20-something daughter. BTW, the old fart dies.

Re:oh boy....

[phxbadash]

That movie title is far to normal for a sci-fi original. Plus it's not a cheap remake of a big summer movie from 2 years ago.

Re:oh boy....

[VirtuousPagan]

you have to have a more appropriate SCI-FI movie title, something like HYDROSUCKERS or WATERVAMPS or TERROR-DROUGHT!

Do Hydrogen Cars Generate More CO2 Per Mile?

[Doug Dante]

Most Hydrogen generated today is made using Steam reforming of natural gas

This process produces "7.05 kg CO2 ... per [1.0] kilogram hydrogen".

Now new cars are getting near 140.9 [grams] C02 [per kilometer] (This is a target, double it if you want)

So, how many KGs of Hydrogen does a Hydrogen powered car need per mile? Multiply x7.05kg to get emissions based on current production technologies.

Are these hydrogen cars poisoning the planet? With a 500 km (310 miles) range, a gas powered car at the target level could sequester and store about 70 kgs (154 pounds) of CO2.

If gas stations were required to accept and sequester this CO2, we could effectively eliminate CO2 emissions from most new automobiles without criss crossing the world with Hydrogen delivery lines or developing a totally new CO2 free hydrogen creation system.

Just capture 50% of CO2 emissions and you'll be doing quite fine as far as cutting emissions goes.

Re:Do Hydrogen Cars Generate More CO2 Per Mile?

[TapeCutter]

"Are these hydrogen cars poisoning the planet?"

No, our current economic system is killing the planet. (Don't look at me, I don't have the answer).

This solves the biodiesel dead end?

[museumpeace]

We have read that ethanol is an energy dead-end using more energy than it delivers when all costs are included. Due to the fact that current biodiesel production processes need a vegtable oil feedstock, it too is a lousy energy source when all costs are considered.
But, U.Wisconsin chem researchers have a chemical [heat and catalysts, not bio-reactors] process that make biodiesel out of cellulose, which is 3/4 of dried plant material by weight . This means most of what farms [and cities too, if you count leaves and grass clippings] burn, bury or compost could be feedstock. Study the diagram...the UW process needs an H2 in-feed [it hydrogenates carbon chains to make the diesel, the H2 shown leaving the reactor is a fraction of what goes in]. So their process would be an energy winner if only a source of H2 that does not consume fossil fuel were available .

NREL, Stanford, meet U. Wisconsin. U. Wisconsin, meet Stanford and NREL. if you guys play nice together and don't play politics, maybe my grandchildren won't be bicycling to the library to read about an age when combustible hydrocarbon liquids were used to run selfpropelled vehicles.
I'd love to know exactly how credible the UW claims are. To whet the appetite of chemically knowledgible /.ers who might otherwise not have seen this article, their energy bottom line:

About 67 percent of the energy required to make ethanol is consumed in fermenting and distilling corn. As a result, ethanol production creates 1.1 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed. In the UW-Madison process, the desired alkanes spontaneously separate from water. No additional heating or distillation is required. The result is the creation of 2.2 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed in energy production.

I was so tempted to try posting the UW result when it came out but /. can't get forty comments on biology topics in 2 hours. [and they get over 900 on ethanol...go figure!] The eds like stories that get hundreds, not tens of responses. Is there a /. equivilent for sustainablity nerds?

Re:This solves the biodiesel dead end?

[Retric]

About 67 percent of the energy required to make ethanol is consumed in fermenting and distilling corn. As a result, ethanol production creates 1.1 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed. In the UW-Madison process, the desired alkanes spontaneously separate from water. No additional heating or distillation is required. The result is the creation of 2.2 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed in energy production.

Ok first off it was my understanding that corn was not an ideal plant for ethanol production but what part of the fermentation / distillation process uses energy? If they are just looking for low-grade heat then there are many sources that are currently going to waste.

I am more a CS nerd, but I have been looking into thermo dynamics of energy generation lately and it looks like most power plants ignore the value of any heat under 400deg F right now so a little stream lining could make this worthwhile.

Re:This solves the biodiesel dead end?

[Raven_Stark]

Interesting. TFA calls it a "diesel additive." Any idea why it would be a poor fuel on its own?

Ah, new news!

[Engineer-Poet]

I read about this quite some time ago on Bruce Sterling's Viridian list; I've been using this cite but it's great to have better ones.

Salt Water?

[Ironsides]

Can this bug survive in salt water? If so, it makes it easier since we wont have to supply it with de-salinized water. On the other hand, could it help in making a cheaper de-salinizing water process?

What's normal?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

adapt this naturally occurring anaerobic organism into one that can survive in a more normal environment

I'm sure that if this organism could talk it would tell you that being taken from natural soil to a hydrogen production facility was not exactly moving into a more normal environment.

Capturing CO2

[fejes]

The issue isn't capturing the CO2, really. It's what you do with it, afterwards.

You can't release it into the atmosphere: Global climate change.

You can't really sink it under the ocean without some significant consequnces. (People have proposed this a number of times, but it's still a bad idea.)

I'm not sure how much CO2 coca-cola uses each year, but I doubt it's THAT much.

Why not just look for a solution that doesn't generate CO2?

Hence, use biocatalysis to perform the hydrolysis by extracting out the enzymes from the organism. Of course, that technology is a few years off, still.

Re:Capturing CO2

[modavis]

Hence, use biocatalysis to perform the hydrolysis by extracting out the enzymes from the organism. Of course, that technology is a few years off, still.

A few tens of kg of nitrogenase (the enzyme in nitrogen-fixing bacteria and algae) have effects of the same order of magnitude as all the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch fertilizer facilities around the world. So people have been thinking for decades about turning that into a nice industrial process. Imagine blowing air across a membrane loaded with enzyme and watching the ammonia or nitrate solution come pouring off. Fame and wealth ensue.

Trouble is, even if we could synthesize the enzyme (not there yet), it seems to need the physical and metabolic context of those organisms to achieve its high catalytic effect. Similar considerations apply to all attempts at artificial photosynthesis so far.

Nature may be kinder with hydrogenase... but don't count on it.

Re:Capturing CO2

[fejes]

That's very true - Nitrogenases suck up a tremendous amount of ATP, and are only producing Hydrogen as a by-product. That, in itself is a tremendous disadvantage to this process. The sheer amount of energy used to power a Nitrogenase is amazing, and still no one knows why they Hydrogen gas is produced anyhow. With luck, Hydrogenases may be slightly less energy intensive.

Still, I am aware of some very intresting (although preliminary) data involving Nitrogenases from R. palustris that are showing some signs of being usable. The general idea is to grow vats of palustris, which is a very slow growing organism, but is able to induce Nitrogenases without being part of a root node. I believe there are three nitrogenases in R. palustris, and one of them may be a suitable candidate for cloning to a faster growing relative, which is also able to grow anaerobically.

At any rate, The requirements for Nitrogenases and Hydrogenases *are* difficult from a protein engineering standpoint, mainly because of the sheer volume of ATP required, and their sensitivity to Oxygen, however, it's only a matter of time before these problems begin to get sorted out. While ATP using enzymes are poor candidates for being used independently of cells, the beauty of the ATP process is that it has allowed for the decoupling of the ATP producing process from the end reaction. It's only a matter of time before we figure out how to decouple them further.

Peak Oil and the Fate of Humanity

[jawahar]

Check out this wonderful site.

http://www.peakoilandhumanity.com/chapter_choice.h tm

CARS D00D!!1ELEVEN!1

[CloudDrakken]

this would be most excellent for hydrogen cars
a big problem being that you spend lots (if not more)
energy simply splitting the H from the O2
which is dumb.

Good find and not surprising

Yo quiero Taco Bell

[Anonymous Coward]

Drop the chalupa.

I for one am eager

[ReidMaynard]

to become a Hydro-Alge farmer

Great DIY project!

[Mister Incognito]

For you High Schoolers*, this is a great project to embark yourselves upon! And it sounds pretty easy once you have the microorganism isolated!

* Evil Genius School alumni only

YTKNATHD

[Mister Incognito]

YTKNATHD

You Too Know Nothing About The Hindenberg Disaster.

Not only the distaster was the US's machination, but the deceased were... how many would you say? A ridiculous 36%! That is a survival rate of over 60% in an extremely dangerous situation in which the hydrogen US embargo put the ship in. Even in those circumstances, I'd take that over any modern air crash.

YMNRTYUDS.

You May Now Return To Your Usual Disinformation Sources.

ITYMHE

[Anonymous Coward]

I Think You Meant Helium Embargo.

New profit center: micro-pharming

[Randym]

If gas stations were required to accept and sequester this CO2, we could effectively eliminate CO2 emissions from most new automobiles without criss crossing the world with Hydrogen delivery lines or developing a totally new CO2 free hydrogen creation system.

Hmmm....run it up to the roof, use the sunlight there, with water from rain, and *grow* stuff in a *controlled environment*. Pharming, in particular, comes to mind: rare high-profit GM'd crops -- say, taxol or various "orphan drug" crops. If that's too hard, what about ginseng? There *is* a market for this sort of thing. See: grow+crops+underground.

Ever seen Hollywood?

[Anonymous Coward]

People complain about hydrogen being explosive....
what about the highly flammable explosive substance called gasoline? Ever watch how a car explodes when a Hollywood bullet hits it?

Re:Not that impressive... Oh, I thought it said...

[davidsyes]

"ORgasm Uses Solar E"nergy to Produce Hydrogen"

out of the corner of my eye...

(No, I am not implying that an orgasm produces hydrogen out of the corner of my eye, either...)

Re:Oxygen contamination? Why not just

[davidsyes]

sign up the "used hydrogen" futures?

Related (old) news in planetary biology

[Anonymous Coward]

Snowball earth has been guessed at for some time- the substantial iron content of the earth ate the oxygen produced for the first couple of billion years of photosynthesis. When the iron sink was used up, life on earth changed dramatically. (1)

Molecular oxygen is nasty, unbelievably reactive stuff.

Another interesting outcome is that the we'd probably only be able to tolerate living on earth for the last 20 MY- even during the age of dinosaurs, the oxygen content of the atmosphere at sea level was roughly equivalent to what you'd expect at Everest. Dinosaurs, aka birds, probably di so well because they are amazingly good at sucking oxygen out of our primarily nitrogen atmosphere.

Even though is not exactly breaking news for geeks like me who study extremophiles, it's nice to see slashdot readers get some exposure to decent science for a change. If you're interested reading more about this, go search the sciam website for some excellent layman's articles on Snowball Earth and the Oxygen Holocaust. Google turns up some excellent material using those search terms as well.

Hope this spurs some interest!

(1) Margulis and Sagan, as in his first wife Lynn , and Carl Sagan.

Flood control

[popmace]

Can we use this for flood control? or maintaining whater level in dams?