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?

Re:Cost measurements?

[rbarreira]

Why don't you do it yourself? ;)

And if possible put the replies here :)

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?

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.