The Botanical Fuel

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e12_Biowasserstoff 11.07.

2006 11:26 Uhr Seite 12

Featured topic: “Environmental protection and sustainability“


12 Hydrogen

Linde supports biohydrogen research

The botanical fuel


Hydrogens is considered to be the energy of the future, but not much research has been
done on sustainable production methods. In a Linde-supported project at the University of
Kiel, green algae and cyanobacteria are the objects of study. When light falls on these
micro-organisms, they make hydrogen from nothing more than water and carbon dioxide.
This natural production method may figure in a future hydrogen economy. By Bernd Müller

Green paradise: Professor Rüdiger Schulz-Friedrich


of the University of Kiel explores options for “green”
hydrogen production.
e12_Biowasserstoff 11.07.2006 11:26 Uhr Seite 13

Linde Technology June 2006 13

Basic research: From some 2000 microalgal cultures, Schulz-Friedrich’s Green hope: Green algae and cyanobacteria may figure in
group seeks to identify the best H2 producers. a sustainable future energy economy.

Green slime – every aquarium owner’s nightmare. But for Professor One thing is clear to Schulz-Friedrich: “One day biohydrogen
Rüdiger Schulz-Friedrich the green algae that cause the slimy will help solve the global energy problem.” The outlook is not
plague are a pure blessing. The botanist has turned a greenhouse bad. Free-living microorganisms produce some 200 million tonnes
and some climate-controlled rooms at the edge of the University of hydrogen every year. The gas is immediately consumed by
of Kiel campus into an Eden for the single-celled plants and their other single-celled organisms, which take up and use hydrogen
cousins the cyanobacteria. Given light and the proper warmth, from their environment. So the researchers make a simple
they thrive splendidly. There is no free lunch, though, and in argument: If microalgae can be made to generate large amounts
return for their care and feeding the tiny beings must generate of hydrogen in the laboratory, it can be harvested before other
hydrogen. Inside glass tanks of murky water, a gas bubbles up; bacteria break it down. We can then view the exhaustion
Schulz-Friedrich proves it is hydrogen by taking a fuel cell from of crude oil, natural gas and coal without anxiety. Hydrogen is
a child’s construction set and hooking it up to a small electric already being produced on a small scale in photobioreactors.
motor with a propeller. The propeller slowly begins to turn. If the algae are deprived of oxygen, they use photosynthesis to
“Biohydrogen from water-splitting photosynthesis is one of the make hydrogen instead of starch. But why do they do this?
cleanest ways to produce energy,” the 45-year-old scientist
says. All it takes, he adds, is light, water, carbon dioxide from air Hydrogen production as a protective measure
dissolved in the water, and a little fertilizer – just like house It used to be thought that hydrogen production by microalgae
plants. Nothing else. was left over from a long-ago time when bacteria learned to
Linde has supported the Kiel research team since 2004. make oxyhydrogen gas as a cellular fuel. Once nature discovered
While hydrogen is considered the energy of the future, there is a clever light-gathering process in photosynthesis, making
as yet no easy answer how to make it commercially. Thus the hydrogen became largely pointless – but the mechanism survived.
interests of Linde and those of the researchers complement Schulz-Friedrich postulates that Synechocystis, the cyanobacteria
each other. “We want to generate the gas as cleanly as possible,” in the green bottle, used the hydrogen generator to build a
says Professor Hans Kistenmacher, Director of Innovation subtle protective mechanism. Even robust microalgae often suffer
Management at Linde Gas and Engineering. “We take unconven- light stress, for example in shallow coastal waters where waves
tional routes to reach that goal.” The route to green hydrogen, act like a magnifying glass to concentrate sunlight to many times
however, is a long one – on this point Schulz-Friedrich agrees with its normal strength. The intense light activates the complex
Dr. Hans-Jürgen Maass, an Innovation Management staffer who photosynthesis machine so much that it would quickly be over-
has studied the potential of biohydrogen. The project is now in taxed and damaged. The bacterium therefore uses the enzyme
the basic research phase, and commercialization is not in pro- hydrogenase to convert the excess energy into hydrogen, which
spect for another decade. Maass still believes it is important escapes as if through a safety valve.
that Linde got involved early: “We are not thinking just about an In a milk-bottle-sized laboratory culture, single-celled green
economic benefit but also about Germany as a research arena.” algae or cyanobacteria produce at best three milliliters of hydro-
Schulz-Friedrich is repeatedly reminded that the concept is not gen per hour, transforming about 0.1 percent of incident solar
an obvious one: “At conferences, most of my colleagues from energy into the gas. Microalgae can live with this, but Rüdiger
other countries are amazed that a company is committed to an Schulz-Friedrich can’t: He would like to boost the yield a hundred-
‘exotic’ research area like this, especially since marketing is fold. For biohydrogen to be economical, the U.S. Department of
still years away.” Energy calculates, the microalgae will have to convert five to ten
e12_Biowasserstoff 11.07.2006 11:26 Uhr Seite 14

14 Hydrogen
Featured topic: “Environmental protection and sustainability“

Hydrogen production with the aid of sunlight

Bioreactor containing algae or cyanobacteria


5
Photosynthesis
+ Hydrogenase
Hydrogen

2H2O -O2 2H2

Light-absorbing dyes in the algal cells enable them to use sunlight, water and carbon
dioxide and generate oxygen and sugar. The sugar is then converted to starch or bio-
mass. If the organisms are deprived of oxygen, they use the radiant energy to make
the desired product, hydrogen, instead.

percent of radiant energy to hydrogen. Researchers have gen, but it is very sensitive to oxygen. Researchers all over the
nudged the efficiency up to two percent, but only at very low world are therefore seeking strategies to block destructive
light intensities: 20 watts per square meter. Although sunlight oxygen. American biologists for example are trying to restrict
in Europe is ten times brighter, the microalgae cannot turn the the transport of molecular oxygen; the Kiel group is exploring
extra energy into hydrogen. This will have to change. the use of additional chemical bonds to immunize the metal
The chief tool the researchers will use is genetic engineering. center against oxygen attack.
The team at Kiel is, however, pursuing other strategies, such Schulz-Friedrich has noted at several conferences – most
as searching for natural producers. “We are now in the hunter- recently an International Energy Agency meeting this February
gatherer phase,” says the professor. The Kiel botanists will in Bangkok – that the topic of biohydrogen is attracting inter-
spend the next two years sorting through a collection of 2000 national interest. The U.S.A., in its effort to become more inde-
microalgal cultures to find the best hydrogen makers, then try pendent of crude oil, has invested great hopes in green hydrogen
to optimize these by genetic modification. To this end, the team production. The U.S. Air Force alone is supporting five projects
(together with the Competence Center for Biomass Utilization) with an eye to securing fuel supplies for its airplanes when oil
has applied for a grant from the state of Schleswig-Holstein, supplies run out in a few decades. Since the 1990s, Japan has
which supports 20 working groups in a variety of areas. Schulz- had plans for huge farms where kilometer-long transparent
Friedrich hopes to profit from the results of his colleagues. Direct tubes floating in the sea will confine microalgae, exposing them
harvesting of hydrogen, the technique he is working on, is just to sunlight so that they generate hydrogen. The concept seems
one possible approach. Another is to produce biomass first and to work in small installations, but the yield is not high enough to
then extract the valuable gas from it in a bioreactor. Biomass justify industrialization.
is normally a source of frustration for the Kiel group, because Even though the project is at an early stage, Linde has an
every quantum of energy the bacteria use for their own growth eye on the long term. “If we are still to be able to drive our
is a quantum they do not employ in making hydrogen. cars when coal and oil have grown scarce,” says Kistenmacher,
“now is the time when we must concern ourselves with finding
Hopes invested in “green” hydrogen new approaches to generating energy.” Linde’s commitment to
The Kiel biologists have recently been doing systematic studies hydrogen production by algae puts the company in the forefront
to find the conditions under which microalgae are active in the of this effort.
right way. A minireactor supports a pair of two-liter algal cultures,
while a complicated apparatus performs measurements right in Bernd Müller is a freelance journalist in Esslingen.
the liquid and records how pH, temperature and the outputs of Writing for scientific and business media, he specializes
hydrogen and oxygen vary. Fluorescence, a measure of photo- in innovative technologies.
synthetic efficiency in the cell, is a key parameter. The point of
this effort is to determine more exactly what reactions are taking Links for further reading:
place in the cell. Scientists know that the metals nickel and iron www.uni-kiel.de/botanik (only in German)
play important roles in hydrogenases; an enzyme with iron alone
is much more active and produces correspondingly more hydro-

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