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Science is working hard to get energy from bacteria, and the most successful projects do so using the solar energy and genetic engineering. The objective is none other than to obtain less expensive energy for the pocket and the environment and, curling the curl, also to achieve that these microorganisms absorb greenhouse gases.
Some inventions have more credibility than others, but all of them allow us to keep hope alive for a better world, less dependent on fossil fuels. As the investigations progress and hopefully begin to be produced on a large scale within a few years, we can continue to follow their progress.
Superbug that turns CO2 into fuel
Scientists from Harvard University have created a system that produces liquid fuels from solar energy, specifically dividing water molecules and taking advantage of the activity of bacteria that inhale CO2 and feed on hydrogen.
Thanks to this, it is possible to convert solar energy into biomass with an efficiency of 5 percent, multiplying by ten the productivity reached by energy plants. faster growth. An unprecedented performance, which is surprising and very promising.
Biofuel leader Daniel Nocera has designed this superbug after inventing a revolutionary artificial leaf five years ago that used energy from the sun to obtain hydrogen from water. Then, it served a genetically modified bacterium to convert CO2, the main gas responsible for climate change, into an alcohol from which it was then easy to obtain biofuel. Already in this invention, solar energy helped transform CO2 into liquid fuel, and now it surprises the world with a bacterium that converts sunlight so efficiently.
Although the results of his study have not yet been published (they will be published shortly in the journal Science), Nocera himself has announced his advances in a conference at the Institute for Energy Policy in Chicago, United States.
The practical applications are potentially limitless, explains the expert. Above all, because the final product obtained from alcohol can be used directly, without the need for additional procedures.
"Right now we are making isopropanol, isobutanol and isopentanol," he said during his speech, "all of them are alcohols that come from hydrogen obtained from divided water, and from the inhalation of CO2 carried out by the bacteria ".
Although bacteria absorb CO2 from the air, the system cannot be considered a solution to combat global warming, he warns. TheSolution to excess emissions It is in the use of renewable energy, and this can be considered a source of green energy, but not a carbon sink. Therefore, indirectly, it would help to keep greenhouse gas emissions at bay.
Cyanobacteria that produce liquid energy
Joule Unlimited, a US company that produces green energy from innovative technologies, located in Bedford, Massachusetts, claims to have designed microbes that require only sunlight and CO2 to produce hydrocarbons such as ethanol or diesel.
The company has obtained a patent for a genetically modified version of cyanobacteria, the peculiarity of which is none other than converting CO2, polluted water and sunlight into a liquid hydrocarbon.
Also on this occasion biofuel is obtained from solar energy. Through the mixture of cyanobacteria and enzymes, the hydrocarbon production in a single stage, converting the captured light into "liquid energy", either in the form of ethanol or diesel.
While there is great skepticism about this cutting edge technology, especially since it has yet to prove the performance of your proposal on a large scale, from Joule Unlimited they do not hesitate to affirm that they are one year away from "revolutionizing the largest industry in the world, which is the oil and gas industry."
According to CEO Bill Sims Joule, if they are right, "there is no reason why this technology cannot change the world." And, be that as it may, there is no doubt that from a utopian perspective it is priceless as a bet for the "energy independence" of the whole world, as well as for a greener planet.
Other projects
There are many other projects that have achieved success with the microbe energy binomial. For example, microbes can be trained to generate isobutanol, a fuel that can replace gasoline. At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), for example, they have conducted genetic modifications in microbes capable of digesting cellulose for the production of isobutanol.
Isobutanol can both be mixed with gasoline to be used in the engines of any automobile powered by that power source, as replaced. As an advantage, in addition to its low cost, we can point out the fact that we do without raw materials that serve as food, which is a plus when it comes to guaranteeing the food safety.
Termite intestine
The Terrabon company uses the MixAlco system to take advantage of waste and convert it into energy. As they explain on their website, they obtain biomass through valuable chemicals that can be processed into biofuels.
The secret is none other, they explain, that a proprietary combination of unmodified microbes that digest waste found in very diverse natural habitats, such as fermentation vats for livestock, termite gut or wetlands that produce methane. In addition, they claim that they can produce energy from other residues such as forest biomass or inedible agricultural residues.
If you want to read more articles similar to Bacteria that produce biofuels, we recommend that you enter our category of Renewable Energies.
