Researchers create hydrogen-producing living droplets

So, this is really cool. A team of scientists have found a way to induce algal cells to produce hydrogen by forcing their photosynthetic pathways to produce hydrogen by squeezing and compacting them into a tiny oxygen deprived drop.

The work's still at early stages, but the researchers seem hopeful this could be scaled up to actual production levels.

The ability to efficiently produce hydrogen in an ongoing manner would be a huge step towards making hydrogen fuel cells a viable alternative to fossil fuels.


www.bristol.ac.uk...

The findings of the international research team based at the University of Bristol and Harbin Institute of Technology in China, are published today in Nature Communications.  

Normally, algal cells fix carbon dioxide and produce oxygen by photosynthesis. The study used sugary droplets packed with living algal cells to generate hydrogen, rather than oxygen, by photosynthesis.

The team, comprising Professor Stephen Mann and Dr Mei Li from Bristol’s School of Chemistry together with Professor Xin Huang and colleagues at Harbin Institute of Technology in China, trapped around 10,000 algal cells in each droplet, which were then crammed together by osmotic compression. By burying the cells deep inside the droplets, oxygen levels fell to a level that switched on special enzymes called hydrogenases that hijacked the normal photosynthetic pathway to produce hydrogen. In this way, around a quarter of a million microbial factories, typically only one-tenth of a millimetre in size, could be prepared in one millilitre of water.

To increase the level of hydrogen evolution, the team coated the living micro-reactors with a thin shell of bacteria, which were able to scavenge for oxygen and therefore increase the number of algal cells geared up for hydrogenase activity.

Although still at an early stage, the work provides a step towards photobiological green energy development under natural aerobic conditions.

Our methodology is facile and should be capable of scale-up without impairing the viability of the living cells. It also seems flexible; for example, we recently captured large numbers of yeast cells in the droplets and used the microbial reactors for ethanol production.”

a reply to: dug88

nope. You can't get Hydrogen without using fossil fuels and more of them than hydrogen will offer. The experts will be along to explain the rules to you. No Hydrogen.

a reply to: dug88
That's a hell of big step in production methods, and a really inventive one. Kudos to the eggheads!

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: dug88

nope. You can't get Hydrogen without using fossil fuels and more of them than hydrogen will offer. The experts will be along to explain the rules to you. No Hydrogen.

Not sure if sarcasm, or unwilling to read a post explaining the how-to....

a reply to: dug88

Very exciting development, let's hope this can be spliced into waste eating bacteria.

Hydrogen powered cars and power stations just became a whole lot more plausible.

a reply to: Nyiah

I have been interested in Hydrogen for years. And every time I try to have the talk about that fuel source, I am inundated by the science folk telling me about laws that prevent any of this from happening. Usually coupled with an unacceptance of the possibility of new technology.

I think Hydrogen has promise, but you will likely see what I mean soon.

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: dug88

nope. You can't get Hydrogen without using fossil fuels and more of them than hydrogen will offer. The experts will be along to explain the rules to you. No Hydrogen.

The 'fossil fuels' could be as simple as corn syrup or sugar though. The Hydrogen gas comes from metabolic pathways that simply consume any sort of carbohydrate. If the hydrogen can be produced in an affordable and clean manner, then this is perfect because the main by-product of burning hydrogen gas is simply water.

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: dug88

nope. You can't get Hydrogen without using fossil fuels and more of them than hydrogen will offer. The experts will be along to explain the rules to you. No Hydrogen.

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: Nyiah

I have been interested in Hydrogen for years. And every time I try to have the talk about that fuel source, I am inundated by the science folk telling me about laws that prevent any of this from happening. Usually coupled with an unacceptance of the possibility of new technology.

I think Hydrogen has promise, but you will likely see what I mean soon.

It sounds to me like you're just being intentionally obtuse. The statements you make are either patently false or probably extremely mangled interpretations of what you've actually been told by knowledgeable sources.

It's perfectly possible to use solar energy like photovoltaic cells to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. So this means your claim that "You can't get Hydrogen without using fossil fuels and more of them than hydrogen will offer." is total BS.

The real questions are not about what CAN be done like that, but what is economically efficient to do, and that is not a static criterion but one which can change as the economics change, for example higher fossil fuel prices make alternatives to fossil fuels more economically viable.

Here's a source on hydrogen production that disagrees with your mangled interpretations of what people have tried to explain to you. First, hydrogen can be made from fossil fuels, but also from many other non-fossil fuel sources:

Hydrogen Production

Hydrogen can be produced using diverse, domestic resources—including fossil fuels, such as natural gas and coal (with carbon sequestration); nuclear energy; and other renewable energy sources, such as biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro-electric power—using a wide range of processes...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) supports the research and development of a wide range of technologies to produce hydrogen economically and in environmentally friendly ways.

Two key phrases in that last sentence are "economically" and "environmentally friendly". I swear some people seem to have no clue of how economics works and while I don't doubt that the hydrogen production process mentioned in this thread might work, I don't see any indication of how economical it will be and economic considerations are always relevant. So, that's a big question mark, not only with this biological production process, but with any production process, how economical is it?

The DOE understand this and after acknowledging there are a multitude of ways to produce hydrogen, they jump right into the economics:

The overall challenge to hydrogen production is cost. For cost-competitive transportation, a key driver for energy independence, hydrogen must be comparable to conventional fuels and technologies on a per-mile basis. In order for fuel cell electric vehicles to be competitive, the total untaxed, delivered and dispensed, cost of hydrogen needs to be less than $4/gge. A gge, or gasoline gallon equivalent, is the amount of fuel that has the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline. One kilogram of hydrogen is equivalent to one gallon of gasoline. This goal is based on thorough research with stakeholders, academia, and national labs. Learn more about DOE's hydrogen cost goal and the analysis used in projecting the future cost of hydrogen.

They even have links to some of the alternative hydrogen production methods like the ones discussed in this thread. Visit the DOE site for the actual links, I'm only copying the names of the links here:

Also view related links that provide details about DOE-funded hydrogen production activities.

Biomass-derived liquid reforming
Electrolysis
Biomass gasification
Thermochemical water splitting
Photoelectrochemical water splitting
Photobiological processes
Microbial biomass conversion.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I think he was being sarcastic, you know, big oil, gas and coal....don’t rock the boat with your green energy witchcraft.

a reply to: Forensick
The first post sounded sarcastic. The second post didn't.