Hydrogen Genome?

New Microbial Genome Shows How

"Take a pot of scalding water, remove all the oxygen, mix in a bit of poisonous carbon monoxide, and add a pinch of hydrogen gas. It sounds like a recipe for a witch's brew. It may be, but it is also the preferred environment for a microbe known as Carboxydothermus hydrogenoformans."

In a paper published in the November 27 th issue of PLoS Genetics, a research team led by scientists at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) report the determination and analysis of the complete genome sequence of this organism. Isolated from a hot spring on the Russian volcanic island of Kunashir , this microbe lives almost entirely on carbon monoxide. While consuming this normally poisonous gas, the microbe mixes it with water, producing hydrogen gas as waste.

As the world increasingly considers hydrogen as a potential biofuel, technology could benefit from having the genomes of such microbes. “ C. hydrogenoformans is one of the fastest-growing microbes that can convert water and carbon monoxide to hydrogen,” remarks TIGR evolutionary biologist Jonathan Eisen, senior author of the PLoS Genetics study. “So if you're interested in making clean fuels, this microbe makes an excellent starting point.”

   

So does this mean that if we mix water with the United States of America we will get hydrogen??????

   

Only if you throw in a generous helping of Canada.

   

That is very cool.

   

Words escape me.

   

It is. It could be a very promising way of creating hyrdogen fuel without the hassles of electrolysis.

   

Chemistry lesson:

CO + H2O => H2 + CO2

In that reaction, carbon monoxide combines with water to make hrdrogen gas (good) and Carbon dioxide, the very gas that we are trying to eliminate by using hydrogen. So it sounds clean on the surface, but likely isn't as good as it sounds.

   

CO is the bad stuff, the poison. It is produced with incomplete combustion, when there isn't evough oxygen to make CO2. YOU dgthe, produce CO2 every time you exhale. Plants use CO2 to produce oxygen.

There's your chemistry lesson.

   

This isn't the place for such a simple "chemistry lesson", dgthe3, as it's a biological process. I'm not going to pretend I know what the process is, but there are many organic compounds produced by chemoautotrophic organisms other than CO2, and such may be case in this situation.

   

Not to mention the unspent hydrocarbons released, and all the other emissions produced by fossil fuel combustion... there's lots of bad stuff.

   

Technically that's bio-chem...i thought engineer-types weren't supposed to know about living things (but i'm guilty of it too). I actually avoided calling CO2 'bad' because every animal produces the stuff. But the reason for switching to hydrogen as a fuel was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. I do understand that CO is more directly harmful to people, afterall i don't know of any carbon dioxide dectors in my house. But i think that there is more of a concern about Carbon dioxide than carbon monoxide but i don't know how justified that concern is.

   

I forgot to add, we all produce a more harmful greenhouse gas: Methane

   

Okay, I have a question. If we are to grow these microbes in a large artificial environment for the purpose of producing hydrogen, we are going to need a lot of heat to keep them warm and active. What about the vast quantities of waste heat produced by power plants, specifically, nuclear reactors? Could we put that waste heat to use "farming" these guys?

As for CO2, it can be harvested and sequestered rather than being dumped into the atmosphere.

Another question, where are we going to get a large supply of cheap CO to feed them?

   

So who's going to invent a power unit that runs off nitrogen.

As a side issue, last week I had my Oxy/Acet tanks changed. The oxygen tank was leaking (faulty valve). That day I was about to put a burnt linseed oil finish on a frog, using a propylene torch. Luckily I heard the hissing and moved it outside.
Could have been a nasty situation

   

Why, of course, from right here: