Blood Protein Used to Split Water

Posted by Zonk on Friday December 1, 2006 @09:53AM from the what-else-are-you-going-to-use-it-for dept.

brian0918 writes "The Imperial College in London is reporting that genetically-engineered blood protein can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. The abstract can be viewed for free from the Journal of the American Chemical Society." From the article: "Scientists have combined two molecules that occur naturally in blood to engineer a molecular complex that uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This molecular complex can use energy from the sun to create hydrogen gas, providing an alternative to electrolysis, the method typically used to split water into its constituent parts. The breakthrough may pave the way for the development of novel ways of creating hydrogen gas for use as fuel in the future."

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Re:We really don't want to do that. by catbutt · 2006-12-01 10:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

Given that its from a living thing anyway, it seems like if breaking down hydrogen and oxygen in mass had any survival benefit, natural selection would have figured it out already.

Obviously, caution is always needed in genetic tinkering, but still....I think the knee jerk "OMG its going to zap all our oceans!" is unwarranted.