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: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?