| Title | New Study Looks to Biological Enzymes as Source of Hydrogen Fuel | |
| Date | Saturday November 30 2019, @06:27AM | |
| Author | janrinok | |
| Topic | ||
| from the dept. | ||
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
New study looks to biological enzymes as source of hydrogen fuel
Currently, hydrogen gas is produced using a very complex industrial process that limits its attractiveness to the green fuel market, the researchers said. In response, scientists are looking toward biologically synthesized hydrogen, which is far more efficient than the current human-made process, said chemistry professor and study co-author Thomas Rauchfuss.
Biological enzymes, called hydrogenases, are nature's machinery for making and burning hydrogen gas. These enzymes come in two varieties, iron-iron and nickel-iron -- named for the elements responsible for driving the chemical reactions. The new study focuses on the iron-iron variety because it does the job faster, the researchers said.
The team came into the study with a general understanding of the chemical composition of the active sites within the enzyme. They hypothesized that the sites were assembled using 10 parts: four carbon monoxide molecules, two cyanide ions, two iron ions and two groups of a sulfur-containing amino acid called cysteine.
The team discovered that it was instead more likely that the enzyme's engine was composed of two identical groups containing five chemicals: two carbon monoxide molecules, one cyanide ion, one iron ion and one cysteine group. The groups form one tightly bonded unit, and the two units combine to give the engine a total of 10 parts.
[...] "The take-away from this study is that it is one thing to envision using the real enzyme to produce hydrogen gas, but it is far more powerful to understand its makeup well enough to able to reproduce it for use in the lab," Rauchfuss said.
Journal Reference: Guodong Rao, Scott A. Pattenaude, Katherine Alwan, Ninian J. Blackburn, R. David Britt, Thomas B. Rauchfuss. The binuclear cluster of [FeFe] hydrogenase is formed with sulfur donated by cysteine of an [Fe(Cys)(CO)2(CN)] organometallic precursor[$]. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019; 116 (42): 20850 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1913324116
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