New algae research promises steady streams of hydrogen

Researchers from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory said today they found a way to unlock algae's massive potential to produce hydrogen for use in vehicles.

While algae naturally emit a small amount of hydrogen during photosynthesis, the researchers say their process increases the speed and efficiency of the process.

The scientists said they isolated the inner machinery of photosynthesis within thermophilic blue-green algae. The researchers then added a platinum catalyst and exposed the combination to light.

The experiment produced a steady stream of clean hydrogen, the researchers said in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Most importantly, the researchers found that the reaction was sustainable at 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit), which is the approximate temperature the algae would face in the desert, where the high solar irradiation would make the process the most productive. The researchers said the process was 10 times more efficient when the temperature increased.

The researchers aren't alone in experimenting with algae to produce hydrogen. Last month, the international Solar Biofuels Consortium shared information about its genetic modifications to algae that enabled the production of significant amounts of 90-percent pure hydrogen (see World not yet ready for super algae).

The UT team was led by Barry Bruce, a professor of biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology at UT Knoxville, and the associate director for the school's Sustainable Energy and Education Research Center.

The process finds the most efficient use for plants in transportation fuel, Bruce said in a news release. Plants grow and die, eventually becoming fossil fuel. Alternately, plants are harvested for biofuel production. Either process takes more time and energy than using the plant to directly create fuel, Bruce said.

"Biofuel as many people think of it now—harvesting plants and converting their woody material into sugars which get distilled into combustible liquids—probably cannot replace gasoline as a major source of fuel," Bruce said in a news release. "We found that our process is more direct and has the potential to create a much larger quantity of fuel using much less energy, which has a wide range of benefits."

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