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RandomFactor writes:

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed light powered nanobio-hybrid organisms that use carbon dioxide and nitrogen as inputs and produce a variety of plastics and fuels

By using light-activated quantum dots to fire particular enzymes within microbial cells, the researchers were able to create "living factories" that eat harmful CO2 and convert it into useful products such as biodegradable plastic, gasoline, ammonia and biodiesel.

The microbes, which lie dormant in water, release their resulting product to the surface, where it can be skimmed off and harvested for manufacturing. Different combinations of dots and light produce different products: Green wavelengths cause the bacteria to consume nitrogen and produce ammonia while redder wavelengths make the microbes feast on CO2 to produce plastic instead.

According to Prashant Nagpal, lead author of the research and an assistant professor in CU Boulder's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, in the future, an ideal application would be:

to have single-family homes and businesses pipe their CO2 emissions directly to a nearby holding pond, where microbes would convert them to a bioplastic.

Journal Reference
Nanorg microbial factories: Light-driven renewable biochemical synthesis using quantum dot-bacteria nano-biohybrids. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2019; DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b02549

Original Submission