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Hydrogen-Emitting Microbe Examined
Concerned Onlooker wrote to mention an article at Science Daily discussing a microbe that lives in volcanic environments, which emits Hydrogen gas as a waste product. "As the world increasingly considers hydrogen as a potential biofuel, technology could benefit from having the genomes of such microbes. 'C. hydrogenoformans is one of the fastest-growing microbes that can convert water and carbon monoxide to hydrogen," remarks TIGR evolutionary biologist Jonathan Eisen, senior author of the PLoS Genetics study. "So if you're interested in making clean fuels, this microbe makes an excellent starting point.'"
Where does the carbon monoxide come from?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
...before somebody patents it?
convert!
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
so... my future car is gonna run off of a bunch of microbes farting? sounds like something out of family guy
Now we can invent cars that run purely on the farts of microbes.
This is a nice job for a microbe, but I don't have see any information about the working temperature that this microbe needs to make the chemical process... Maybe this could be another problem... The volcanic habitat it's very hot (and hard to emulate)...
about me A - B
Imagine getting this bug in your gut. Lighting your farts would have *devastating* consequences!
From the opening of the article:
Take a pot of scalding water, remove all the oxygen, mix in a bit of poisonous carbon monoxide, and add a pinch of hydrogen gas. It sounds like a recipe for a witch's brew. It may be, but it is also the preferred environment for a microbe known as Carboxydothermus hydrogenoformans.
If you remove the oxygen, won't you be left with Hydrogen anyway?
liqbase
...welcome our new hydrogen-emitting overlords!
You are not going to get energy from CO2. At least not without burning something else, like magnesium. If you want to end the usage of fossil fuels, go nuclear (or solar).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
This can be used for another form of Hydrogen Boost for Truckers. Instead of using electicity and water, it can use water, exaust gas, and microbe. Not only will it further reduce emissions by using them to produce hydrogen.
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This is very interesting indeed. A low-energy process by which free hydrogen can be produced. But a few questions.
- The article mentions that oxygens need to be removed from the water; How much energy does this require?
- In what quantities is the hydrogen produced; What quantities is needed to power a fuel cell?
- How efficient is this process compared to electrolysis.
Also it says that the water needs to be boiling in order for the microbes to have optimal conditions; But then of course the energy has to come from somewhere. The water might be heated using solar or wind power i guess. Which brings us back to to the storage problem, and most hydrogen storage solutions(not based on pressure-tanks) require heat to release the hydrogen.
No, the article says that the organism intakes CO and H2O and expels H2. This does not mean that a simple reaction occurs with CO and H2O as reactants and H2 as a product.
From TFA:
The bug boasts at least five different forms of a protein machine, dubbed carbon monoxide deyhydrogenase, that is able to manipulate the poisonous gas. Each form of the machine appears to allow the organism to use carbon monoxide in a different way. Most other organisms that live on carbon monoxide have only one form of this machine. In other words, while other organisms may have the equivalent of a modest mixing bowl to process their supper of carbon monoxide, this species has a veritable food processor, letting it gorge on a hot spring buffet all day.
So apparently the CO is acted upon by the proteins, and likely the H2O is used to sustain other life processes in some other way, and the H2 is simply the end result of some metabolic process at the end. If you want to account for the C and the O's, they probably went into forming some protein somewhere.
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Most of the CO would probably be coming from a power plant buring coal, Natural Gas, Oil. From there, they can run the output of the plant into a number of "bio reactors". The first one could very well hold this critter as that would have the highest heat. From there, go to work with the CO2 eaters (IIRC algae) that were mentioned about a week ago (or so it seems). They will actually use the CO2 for like a plant but with a quick uptake.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It requires a catlyst and high temps (700-1100C). The high temp is a lot of energy. I am not a power engineer, but I would be willing to bet that they want the temps from their plumes to be quite a bit lower.
possible that this bacteria may do the job for a fraction of the price. esp when combined with other processes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
2(CO) + H2O = H2 + 2(CO2)
That should be CO + H2O = H2 + CO2
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As described in a 1950's science fiction story.
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The article refers to CO (carbon monoxide) - which also has no hydrogen. This is supplied by water. Not entirely sure what the bacterium does with the carbon-based resultant products, but CO + H2O --> H2 + 2C + O2. This is probably how it generates its oxygen supply (assuming it needs one) and also a supply of carbon for making proteins/DNA/etc...
-- Soruk
There is a good 14min broadcast of whats involved with hydrogen as a viable fuel source.t ml
I believe the question of where to get the hydrogen from is discussed and microbes come up.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/01.h
When I worked at Mobil as an engineer (before Exxon swalled them) there was a project working on microbes that consumed CO2 and excreted long chain hydrocarbons that could be used as fuel. Unfortunately they were slow and difficult to control. I imagine that microbes thriving under volcanic conditions would be hard to use commercially, but perhaps the conditions could be replicated in certain settings or the mechanism transplanted into other microbes (any microbiologists want to comment?). The ideas are good but the technology is a long way off!
"You fart Helium?"
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
This is likely the most promising potential method of creating a renewable fuel source. There has been some work done on this above and beyond what the article discusses. By using thermophillic bacteria (or their genes coding specific enzymes, at least), we have been able to create bacteria that can produce H2 at considerable rates using nothing more than cellulose and water. To date, no one has been able to make this an effecient process, however. The search is still on for H2 production rate increases (and the technological infrastructure to utilize this as a fuel source when it does become viable).
Why oh why do people, who feel they have somethin to tell that involves references to species ALWAYS abbreviate the generic name? How the hell is anybody to guess WTF things like 'E. coli', 'D. radiourans' or other phrases refer to? So what does the 'C' in 'C. hydrogenoformans' mean - assuming that 'hydrogenoformans' shouldn't have been 'hydrogeniformans' as well?
Names of biological species consist of two parts: the generic name and the specific epithet. Now, since there's significantly more than 1 genus of bacteria that begin with 'C', it is by no means self evident which one we are talking about; so if I want to look up what else is known about this bacteria, I am probably not going to be able to find anything useful, because the people in the scientific community who know about these things are going to use the full generic name. Which is one reason why it is important: when you post to a public newsservice, you either convey precise information or you are simply running with some stupid gossip. In my opinion, if you can't be bothered with looking up and checking the basic information, don't bother at all; I have no time for gossip.
When you read the article they have these things that look like explanatory hyperlinks to words like 'water', 'research' and 'scientists', but are, instead, commercials tied to the words. What is this called? Whatever it's called, it's VERY IRRITATING. And I wish Slashdot would not use submissions based on web pages that do this. When I am tricked into an advertisement this way I feel like I've crawled into bed with someone who suprises you with both male and female sex organs. It just doesn't seem right to be surprised like that.
umm, retard, the bacterium has to get something out of the metabolization. The waste is H2, so unless it can directly metabolize CO2, in which case there are more efficient ways to get it, it is after the carbon and the O2 separately.
It smells like that damn microbe again.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The funny part is with CO you dont need the hydrogen even, Wood Gas producers like thsose the Europeans (especially Belgians adn Germans used from 1930-1945) are fully sustainable on Just CO,
Under pressure CO will Burn just like any other "fuel" it requires a slightly advanced timing and higher compression (although not as high as diesel) but it burns fine and will work with current internal combustion engines, the PROBLEM is is nasty stuff to living organisms that depend on OXYGEN.
Google around for Wood Gas Producers and Engines, there is a fellow in Australlia that drives his truck around on wood.
But just the CO is enough , now the destructive gassification of wood/coal, will also produce pure hydrogen, that along with the CO burns even better.
I always had a thought to build a Grass Fueled Lawn mower, using the exhaust heat to Dry the clipping then burining them to drive the engine, kinda a lawn mower that EATS the grass, but alas I have no time, maybe by the time I retire, although by then the Internal Combustion engine will probably be illegal.
There has been research on hydrogenase enzymes since at least the 70s. I was a student worker in Dr. Leonard Mortenson's lab at the University of Georgia in the late 80s when they were working with Fe-based hydrogenase sequencing.
Give us a story about moving from the lab to the production line. Bacteria/enzymes that produce hydrogen is nothing new.
"Dude, They're Farting FIRE!!!!"
I couldn't fail to disagree with you any less.
Typical Slashdot, couldn't manage to make an argument about an alternative fuel source without revealing your politics.
The life support system needed to sustain the bacteria colony while the truck is not running (i.e., not producing heat, not producing CO) would probably be cost-prohibitive to mobile implementation of this idea. Unless, of course, gas stations started culturing bacteria so you could top off your H-farm along with your diesel tank.
So if you have a tank of these bugs that produces 1 liter of H2 / minute, and a tank that produces H2 by electrolysis at 1 liter / minute, which of the two tanks consumes more energy?
Or is efficiency beside the point?
"First, we compost all the lawyers..."
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The paper was published in an Open Access journal so you can all browse that if the press release is too basic. Go to http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request =get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.0010065
the second someone discovers it they will patent it.
correct me if I am wrong about this but isn't it like...40% of the human genome that is copyrighted now? And isn't most of it by private corporations?
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
What the hell are you talking about? Did you even read the freaking article, genius? The bacterium gets its energy out of the metabolization. The CO is its food source that it uses to generate ATP, just like you would have used sugar and oxygen to generate ATP if you had any brain cells firing this morning. Both H2 and CO2 are waste products, the bug just wants energy.
Shouldn't you be doing something useful?
Woodgass/biomass gasification is the first thing I thought of when I read the article, and it might be an ideal source of the necessary CO as there is already the (apparently necessary) low concentration of H2 as well. There are a couple problems with gasification that make it somewhat impractical for large-scale deployments on it's own. a) gasifiers work best in steady state conditions b) CO is relatively unstable, and doesn't compress/store well. With these microbes, you might well get the best of both worlds - a gasification system that is carbon-neutral and can run off say switchgrass grown in otherwise marginal agrigcultural land, plus a flexible fuel in H2 that can be transported, stored etc.
Yeah, if you live in a world full of CO. Of course, since CO is a highly toxic gas, you wouldn't actually be "living" there. And CO hardly comes for free since it's combustable as well.
I'd have found this more interesting if we had toxic CO dumps in need of cleanup.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why don't you RTFA? Your question is only answered in the first freakin' paragraph:
Cue the "you must be new here" remarks in 3... 2... 1...
Sean
Could one use this to build an add on to a smoke stack and extract hydrogen that way?
That's worse than "farting".
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The combustion of liquid H2 does not produce greenhouse gases, unlike oils. The holy grail here is not energy density, but trying to restore the natural carbon cycle and curb catastrophic global warming.
What do biology textbooks have to say about morality?
Except, possibly, "goodbye welfare, hello eugenics!"?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
How has Slashdot moderation become so broken?
Photochemical Generation of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen by Reduction of Carbon Dioxide and Water under Visible Light Irradiation
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Absolutely correct. It is really how we can store and distribute energy to be useful with the lowest total cost. Cost here taking into account all the energy, and envirionment and cleanup costs.
Excuse me? Bush is a sock puppet for the oil companies and you and I both know it. He is an astonishing barrier to responsible behavior on the part of our nation and you can't talk about fuels without talking about our government's position.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
I don't see the speed of reaction (growth) of these prokaryotes addressed anywhere in the cited article (or in the original PLoS article, but IANABiologist, so I could have missed it). Which does beg the question of whether these bugs can chew CO (or any of the other substrates that the PLoS article suggests the prokaryote may be able to subsist on) at a rate that's likely to be industrially interesting.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Here we go again, another liberal telling me what I do and do not know.
Can't address the subject without bringing up your politics, can you?
And what do you think George Bush is? A chicken hawk draft dodger, but peel that away and
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo