CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 24 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say a new process could lead to the production of clean, carbon-free hydrogen fuel using bioengineered microorganisms.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say many kinds of algae and cyanobacteria, common water-dwelling microorganisms, are capable of using energy from sunlight to split water molecules and release hydrogen.
The obstacle to utilizing this for fuel production is that, under ordinary circumstances, hydrogen production takes a back seat to the production of compounds that the organisms use to support their own growth, an MIT release said Tuesday.
However, researchers have discovered a method to use bioengineered proteins to reverse this preference, allowing more hydrogen to be produced.
"The algae are really not interested in producing hydrogen, they want to produce sugar," MIT's Iftach Yacoby said, explaining that the sugar is what they need for their own survival, and the hydrogen is just a byproduct.
The scientists found that by introducing a multitasking enzyme into the liquid where the algae are at work, sugar production is suppressed and the organisms' energies are redirected into hydrogen production.
The process increases the rate of algal hydrogen production by about 400 percent, Yacoby said.
Sugar production is suppressed but not eliminated, he said, because "if it went to zero, it would kill the organism."
Developing the process further to produce a viable commercial system for hydrogen-fuel manufacturing is "a matter of time and money," Shuguang Zhang of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering said.
