Converting Sunlight Into Liquid Fuel With a Bionic Leaf

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday February 11, 2015 @05:29AM from the who-needs-dead-dinosaurs dept.

hypnosec writes: Artificial leaf techology made waves the moment it was announced by Daniel Nocera back in 2011. His latest research, published in PNAS, involves gathering hydrogen from this artificial leaf, carbon dioxide from another source, and feeding it to Ralstonia eutropha bacteria to create liquid fuel. Once the materials are fed to the bacteria, "An enzyme takes the hydrogen back to protons and electrons, then combines them with carbon dioxide to replicate—making more cells. Next, ... new pathways in the bacterium are metabolically engineered to make isopropanol." Researchers say the same process could be used to make vitamins.

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Animal, not plant by MrLogic17 · 2015-02-11 05:36 · Score: 4, Informative

The headline implies that we have a machine replicating the process of a plant. The summary indicates that what they have is a vat of bacteria that are making alcohol. Not nearly as attention grabbing, considering mankind has been using yeast & bacteria to make alcohols of various forms since the dawn of time.
If they have a more efficient process with simpler (cheaper) inputs, kudos to them. But this ain't no artificial leaf.