fuel coming from water?
As the price of petroleum hits the roof, the search is on for alternative sources of clean, renewable energy. One promising candidate that's a ray of sunshine in our otherwise energy-scarce planet is none other than the sun.The technology is already available to tap this ever abundant power source. But as many of you already know, the sun isn't always shining. Once an overcast cloud sets in, the power meter drops back to zero. So researchers have turned to another more viable and abundant resource: water.
If you still remember your high school chemistry, a water molecule is made up of two basic elements, namely, hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is a highly combustible gas, most especially in the presence of oxygen. Due to its highly combustible quality, hydrogen has been commonly used as rocket fuel just ask NASA.In fact, if you've figured out a way to split a water molecule into its component elements, hydrogen and oxygen, and then burn these gases together to produce energy, you won't be getting highly toxic wastes like carbon monoxide. Instead, you'll be producing water molecules again as waste products, which you can re-use to produce more energy!
Of course, this looks good on paper. But the main stumbling block is finding a way to split a water molecule into its component elements that's efficient, environment friendly, and cost effective.Some systems use a catalyst to split a water molecule. But the cost is prohibitive. Another employs solar energy to break the water molecule. But as earlier mentioned, the sun's not always shining.
Now researchers have turned to the most unlikely candidate: a genetically engineered virus. Unfortunately, when one hears the word "virus", you're most likely going to think of the common cold or AIDS and then immediately get the face it: viruses have been given a bad rap lately. Thanks to the information the media has been broadcasting which you see and hear every day in the comfort of your living room.
According to the hype, viruses are responsible for most of your misery from the common cold to measles, to measles to AIDS. Of course, most of it is actually true. But not all viruses are the bad guys. Some of them may someday be indispensable to our way of life.Hopefully things are about to change for the much-maligned virus. Scientists have been busy genetically engineering a virus strain to split the water molecule.
If these scientists are indeed successful in their research, it would break our dependence on oil and coal. No longer would we be at the mercy of oil producing nations. No longer would we be using fuel that would pollute our environment.At the forefront of this breakthrough research is Angela Belcher, the Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering. Her team has managed to genetically engineer a common, harmless bacterial virus called M13 so that it would attract and bind with molecules of a catalyst (iridium oxide) and a biological pigment (zinc porphyrins). The viruses then became wire-like devices that could very efficiently split the oxygen from water molecules.
Unfortunately, over time, the virus-wires would clump together and lose their effectiveness, so the researchers added another extra step: encapsulating the virus in a microscopic gel matrix so that they will be able to maintain their uniform arrangement as well as keep their stability and efficiency.While hydrogen obtained from water is the gas that would be used as a fuel, the splitting of oxygen from water is the more technically challenging "half-reaction" in the process, Belcher revealed, so her team focused on this part.
According to her, plants and blue-green algae have evolved highly developed photosynthetic systems for the efficient oxidation of water. Other researchers have tried to use these photosynthetic parts of plants directly for harnessing sunlight, but these materials can have structural stability issues.
Belcher decided that instead of borrowing plants' components, she and her team would instead borrow their methods. In plant cells, natural pigments are used to absorb sunlight, while catalysts then promote the water-splitting reaction. It is this process that Belcher and her team, including doctoral student Yoon Sung Nam, the lead author of the new paper, decided to replicate in the laboratory.
In the team's system, the viruses simply act as a kind of scaffolding, causing the pigments and catalysts to line up with the right kind of spacing to trigger the water-splitting reaction. According to Belcher, the role of the pigments was to act as some sort of an antenna to capture the light and then transfer the energy down the length of the virus, like a wire. The virus is a very efficient harvester of light, with these biological pigments attached.
If you still remember your high school chemistry, a water molecule is made up of two basic elements, namely, hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is a highly combustible gas, most especially in the presence of oxygen. Due to its highly combustible quality, hydrogen has been commonly used as rocket fuel just ask NASA.In fact, if you've figured out a way to split a water molecule into its component elements, hydrogen and oxygen, and then burn these gases together to produce energy, you won't be getting highly toxic wastes like carbon monoxide. Instead, you'll be producing water molecules again as waste products, which you can re-use to produce more energy!
Of course, this looks good on paper. But the main stumbling block is finding a way to split a water molecule into its component elements that's efficient, environment friendly, and cost effective.Some systems use a catalyst to split a water molecule. But the cost is prohibitive. Another employs solar energy to break the water molecule. But as earlier mentioned, the sun's not always shining.
Now researchers have turned to the most unlikely candidate: a genetically engineered virus. Unfortunately, when one hears the word "virus", you're most likely going to think of the common cold or AIDS and then immediately get the face it: viruses have been given a bad rap lately. Thanks to the information the media has been broadcasting which you see and hear every day in the comfort of your living room.
According to the hype, viruses are responsible for most of your misery from the common cold to measles, to measles to AIDS. Of course, most of it is actually true. But not all viruses are the bad guys. Some of them may someday be indispensable to our way of life.Hopefully things are about to change for the much-maligned virus. Scientists have been busy genetically engineering a virus strain to split the water molecule.
If these scientists are indeed successful in their research, it would break our dependence on oil and coal. No longer would we be at the mercy of oil producing nations. No longer would we be using fuel that would pollute our environment.At the forefront of this breakthrough research is Angela Belcher, the Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering. Her team has managed to genetically engineer a common, harmless bacterial virus called M13 so that it would attract and bind with molecules of a catalyst (iridium oxide) and a biological pigment (zinc porphyrins). The viruses then became wire-like devices that could very efficiently split the oxygen from water molecules.
Unfortunately, over time, the virus-wires would clump together and lose their effectiveness, so the researchers added another extra step: encapsulating the virus in a microscopic gel matrix so that they will be able to maintain their uniform arrangement as well as keep their stability and efficiency.While hydrogen obtained from water is the gas that would be used as a fuel, the splitting of oxygen from water is the more technically challenging "half-reaction" in the process, Belcher revealed, so her team focused on this part.
According to her, plants and blue-green algae have evolved highly developed photosynthetic systems for the efficient oxidation of water. Other researchers have tried to use these photosynthetic parts of plants directly for harnessing sunlight, but these materials can have structural stability issues.
Belcher decided that instead of borrowing plants' components, she and her team would instead borrow their methods. In plant cells, natural pigments are used to absorb sunlight, while catalysts then promote the water-splitting reaction. It is this process that Belcher and her team, including doctoral student Yoon Sung Nam, the lead author of the new paper, decided to replicate in the laboratory.
In the team's system, the viruses simply act as a kind of scaffolding, causing the pigments and catalysts to line up with the right kind of spacing to trigger the water-splitting reaction. According to Belcher, the role of the pigments was to act as some sort of an antenna to capture the light and then transfer the energy down the length of the virus, like a wire. The virus is a very efficient harvester of light, with these biological pigments attached.
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