Editor's Blog
Artificial photosynthesis may soon be a reality – splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. You only have to look as far as your garden to observe one of the most common chemical reactions in nature at work pulling apart water molecules (H2O) and splitting them into carbohydrates and oxygen (O2). Nature provides the template for this process using the energy from sunlight to fuel the reaction. Here’s a video showing the basic process:
In your garden, your plants use the natural pigment chlorophyll to absorb sunlight, while catalysts produce the water-splitting reaction through cellular respiration. This process was used as a biological template by a team of MIT researchers, led by Dr. Angela Belcher, Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering, to emulate the “highly organized photosynthetic system” evolved in blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) and other plants to separate oxygen from hydrogen.
Taking their clues from nature, they engineered a novel alternative to this process, as described in a recently published research paper in Nature Nanotechnology. The team decided to alter the common, harmless M13 bacterial virus so that it would attract and bind with molecules of a iridium oxide catalyst and the biological pigment zinc porphyrins. The viruses were used as wire-like devices to split the oxygen from water molecules. Thomas Mallouk, the DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics at Pennsylvania State University, is quoted as saying that he finds the research “…an extremely clever piece of work that addresses one of the most difficult problems in artificial photosynthesis, namely, the nanoscale organization of the components in order to control electron transfer rates.”
Rather than splitting hydrogen from water, Dr. Belcher’s team focused on splitting oxygen from water (oxidation), which is more challenging from a technical perspective. Splitting hydrogen from water, however, ultimately may prove to be more interesting. Hydrogen is an important alternative to some of the problems of the current hydrocarbon-based economy. Free hydrogen is relatively rare on Earth, and thus it is typically generated by electrolysis of water, an expensive process that requires electrical energy. Using sunlight rather than electricity to make hydrogen from water could greatly improve the efficiency of the process. Hydrogen can then be stored and used to generate electricity using a fuel cell, or burned as fuel for cars and trucks. Dr. Belcher’s team is already working on a biological template to efficiently split hydrogen from water similar to the one they successfully used to split oxygen from water. The hydrogen atoms in their current process get split into component protons and electrons. The new process under development would combine these back into hydrogen atoms and molecules.
Splitting hydrogen from water could help make hydrogen a more viable alternative to coal, nuclear, and fossil fuels.
Dr. Belcher’s interest in alternative energy and sustainable technologies is not new. The winner of a 2004 MacArthur Foundation genius grant for using genetically engineered viruses as templates for nanoscale electronic components, she says she was inspired by the ability of abalone mollusks to extract dissolved chemicals from water to manufacture their incredible pearly shells. “Suddenly, I wondered, what if we could assemble materials like the abalone does — but not be limited to one element? What if we could bond protein to other elements in the periodic table and grow new materials?” In 2006, her insight led to the use of the M13 virus to assemble batteries. The genetically altered viruses, which are harmless to humans, pull ions from a solution to form both the positive- and negative-charged ends of a lithium-ion battery. “We’re letting biology help us work on solving those problems, solving what the next-next generation batteries are going to be,” says Dr. Belcher. She talks about her earlier work with the M13 virus in this video:
During a recent visit to the MIT campus, President Obama met with Dr. Belcher and other energy researchers. He stressed the need for new, efficient and clean energy technologies — something very much underscored by the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Taking clues from photosynthesis to develop a biological template that uses viruses and sunlight to split hydrogen from water could help make hydrogen a more viable alternative to coal, nuclear, and fossil fuels.
NOTE: Jimmy Stewart’s character in You Can’t Take it With You talks about artificial photosynthesis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWKHmE8_Mkc
20 Comments
Clean-unclean energy dichotomy is highly relative. Burning fossil fuels is not “dirty”, the byproduct is CO2, the same gas that plants use to finally get their carbon molecules and form carbohydrates, it can be considered an airborne nutrient or a global warming toxic agent. The real problem is in consumption scale and imbalances generated by human intervention, without fully understanding the system (we, as humans, do not now) and without restrain wind power plants can alter the wind patterns and pluvial climate of extensive regions, solar power plants can modify the regional albedo and modify local climates… at the end, human intervention will modify the system, it is a possibility that energy technology is totally irrelevant, while consumption and equilibrium maintenance are, of course, to maintain the equilibrium for long periods of time, non-renewable resources (or slowly renewing ones) are unusable.
I don’t find this compelling. If we started with a hydrogen economy and just now discovered petroleum as a new substance, easily gushing from the ground in various parts of the world with the help of crude technology like early 20th Century plumbing, we would hail it as a wonder fuel and free energy and dump hydrogen in petroleum’s favor.
Even now, as BP’s problems show, we still net more energy from the complicated offshore drilling for petroleum than we would derive from a hydrogen economy.
“we would hail it as a wonder fuel and free energy and dump hydrogen in petroleum’s favor.”
No we wouldn’t.
> Artificial photosynthesis may soon be a reality – splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Are you sure you ever attend any school in your life? Try to use wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis (from the Greek φώτο- [photo-], “light,” and σύνθεσις [synthesis], “putting together”, “composition”) is a process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight.[1]
Hmm, um yeah, let’s see. Let’s dump cheap, clean, free, abundant energy with petroleum. Hmm.
Nope.
No, because if we had reached this same level of technological sophistication on a hydrogen economy, what would be the point of oil? Developing all the complex drilling techniques, massive refining plants, transportation, modification of engines to use the new fuels, what a MASSIVE waste of time, effort and money
These are the problems that hydrogen is facing right now, except in your hypothetical situation they are reversed. We have an incentive to develope a hydrogen economy to limit the damage caused by global warming, possible peak oil and improve energy security, these incentives do not exist in your imaginary situation
YOu comment is nonsense. Literally nonsensical.
A) Petroleum is a nasty, fuel. We would never go to it from something less nasty
B) Petroleum is energy dense, but substantially more limited.
C) The problem with Hydrogen is two fold
1) Take a lot of energy to create
2) transportation is more difficult the petroleum
If this method works and Hydrogen is created on site it solves those issues.
Right now people still drill for oil because there isn’t an alternative energy source that’s easy to use.
I’ll pay a thousand quid to a block who splits water to carbohydrates. Are all environMeNTALISTS this illiterate?
Before questioning someone else, maybe you should get your facts straight:
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio104/photosyn.htm
>Are you sure you ever attend any school in your life? Try to use wikipedia< That's a bit snarky, maybe you should look a little further down in the wiki, it might help you understand where the author is coming from, I think they have a better understanding of the process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-dependent_reactions
In photosynthesis, water is split into hydrogen and oxygen to create a proton gradient (kinda like a battery) to ultimately provide energy for glucose production.
What the heck are they talking about?? Splitting oxygen from water vs splitting hydrogen from water?…..ummmm they’re the same thing! There ARE only the two types of atoms in a water molecule. Either way, you get free hydrogen *and* free oxygen! I’m soooo confused.
” Free hydrogen is relatively rare on Earth, and thus it is typically generated by electrolysis of water”
Actually, free hydrogen is typically extracted from natural gas (commercially), which is why processes that make electrolysis of water more efficient are so important. The use of electricity to split water molecules (electrolysis) costs more energy than you get from the components, which is why it isn’t commercially viable right now.
The point is that reducing our dependence on oil isn’t effective if we just shift it to a dependent on natural gas. Instead, if we can develop an efficient H2O –> H2 + O2 –> H2O cycle we would be much better off.
Then we can use oil just to make cool plastic stuff!
I don’t get the difference between splitting oxygen off from water or splitting hydrogen off from water. Water only has hydrogen and oxygen in it, right? It seems to me like saying taking the lid off a jar is different from removing the jar from the lid.
Solar power, Wind Power, Bio-fuels are not clean, free and especially not CHEAP.
By clean I mean NO environmental impact. Solar consumes a lot of power to manufacture, It produces waste products in its manufacture, It creates unattractive large fields of mirrors or panels, exposed plumbing and wiring to remote locations. Wind power has similar problems plus bird kills and woosh woosh noise pollution. Bio-Fuels take up huge areas to grow, fuel to harvest and process, poisons to control insects and fertilizers to increase yield.
All of these are so costly to manufacture that they would not be used hardly at all if there were no socialist government subsidies. Some applications like remote sensing, Space and other remote locations make economic sense for solar. The cost of solar must come down about 80% to make economic sense. Wind is the most economic however it is not reliable and needs a regular coal, Natural gas or nuclear power plant to back it up. There are good reasons our energy is derived from current sources. It is the most cost effective and practical means available today. Some day solar, direct biofuel and even clean fusion methods will replace all fossil fuels. Not because of government intervention but in spite of it. We will replace the old technologies because the new will make economic sense!
The clue to the difference is in the article.
The hydrogen is “seperated into its component proton and electron during the process”
Now, I have NO idea what I am talking about, but it *appears* that this process yields perhaps a small electrical charge? (the electrons from the hydrogen move in a direction away from the reaction?)
Now, I don’t know the technical difference between a Hydrogen atom and a singular proton (I’d have thought that in general such a thing would be relatively trivial to restore back to a normal hydrogen atom) but obviously, this process does something to the hydrogen to make it less useful (or no longer considered “hydrogen”)
Alternatively, perhaps the hydrogen is being unbound from the water, and transferred to a binding with the catalyst. Resulting in free’d up oxygen, but the hydrogen is still bound.
Either way, interesting story.
the way splitting hydrogen off of water and splitting oxygen off of water is different is because of where the electrons go. if the electron stays with the heavily electronegative oxygen atom, the hydrogen you get is actually a proton (keep in mind that a hydrogen atom is just a proton and an electron) otherwise, you get hydrogen gas (H2) and oxygen gas (O2).
If we would look a little further – everything are turning into shit (straight meaning). All results of photosynthesis are going to be ultimately animal shit at the end.
Wow, you are truly a short-sighted idi*t.
When however considering that no more fossil carbon should be released into the atmosphere as CO2 than are captured in a similar chemically stable form, you will realize that solar, wind or other “alternative” energy harvesting methods are no more expensive than the use of fossil oil or coal. In reality, concentrated energy – especially in a quality suitable to convert into work – is never cheap.
Arguing about the economic sense of using any sustainable source without taking into account the subsidies implied by not recycling the released fossil carbon is just ignorant or dishonest.
The obvious problem is that the energy consumption per person, especially in the “developed world”, is too high to be sustainable. This will have to be addresses to the extend that direct solar, wind and other similar derived sustainable energy sources can sustain societies with a good quality of life. (This may be defined differently in the future.)
When however considering that no more fossil carbon should be released into the atmosphere as CO2 than are captured in a similar chemically stable form, you will realize that solar, wind or other “alternative” energy harvesting methods are no more expensive than the use of fossil oil or coal. In reality, concentrated energy – especially in a quality suitable to convert into work – is never cheap.
Arguing about the economic sense of using any sustainable source without taking into account the subsidies implied by not recycling the released fossil carbon is just ignorant or dishonest.
The obvious problem is that the energy consumption per person, especially in the “developed world”, is too high to be sustainable. This will have to be addresses to the extend that direct solar, wind and other similar derived sustainable energy sources can sustain societies with a good quality of life. (This may be defined differently in the future.)