Converting Sunlight Into Liquid Fuel With a Bionic Leaf

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.

Comments

Re:Animal, not plant

[gstoddart]

The summary indicates that what they have is a vat of bacteria that are making alcohol

Hmmmm ... are you sure?

Their work integrates an "artificial leaf," which uses a catalyst to make sunlight split water into hydrogen and oxygen, with a bacterium engineered to convert carbon dioxide plus hydrogen into the liquid fuel isopropanol.

So, they're clearly doing more than just making alcohol with yeast.

"This is a proof of concept that you can have a way of harvesting solar energy and storing it in the form of a liquid fuel

In fact, I'd say it sounds quite different.

Re:Animal, not plant

[jdschulteis]

If it is so good, why not just store the hydrogen for fuel? Wouldn't it be cheaper/easier to skip the last steps?

Hydrogen is difficult to store in a lightweight, compact system. One good way to store hydrogen is to chemically combine it with carbon and oxygen and put the resulting liquid in tanks at ordinary temperatures and pressures.