{"id":359584,"date":"2022-03-08T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?post_type=selected&p=359584"},"modified":"2022-03-08T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T14:00:00","slug":"tiny-skyscrapers-help-cyanobacteria-convert-sunlight-into-electricity","status":"publish","type":"selected","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/selected\/tiny-skyscrapers-help-cyanobacteria-convert-sunlight-into-electricity\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny \u2018skyscrapers\u2019 help cyanobacteria convert sunlight into electricity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Researchers from the University of Cambridge, UK, used 3D printing to create grids of high-rise “nano-housing” where sun-loving bacteria can grow quickly. The researchers were then able to extract the bacteria\u2019s waste electrons, left over from photosynthesis, which could be used to power small electronics, as announced by the University of Cambridge in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other research teams have extracted energy from photosynthetic bacteria, but the Cambridge researchers have found that providing them with the right kind of home increases the amount of energy they can extract by over an order of magnitude. The approach is competitive against traditional methods of renewable bioenergy generation and has already reached solar conversion efficiencies that can outcompete many current methods of biofuel generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New methods to create bioenergy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Their\u00a0results<\/a>, reported in the journal\u00a0Nature Materials<\/em>, open new avenues in bioenergy generation and suggest that “biohybrid” sources of solar energy could be an important component in the zero-carbon energy mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Current renewable technologies, such as silicon-based solar cells and biofuels, are far superior to fossil fuels in terms of carbon emissions, but they also have limitations, such as a reliance on mining, challenges in recycling, and farming and land use, which results in biodiversity loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur approach is a step towards making even more sustainable renewable energy devices for the future,\u201d said Dr Jenny Zhang<\/a> from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, who led the research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhang and her colleagues from the Department of Biochemistry and the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy are working to rethink bioenergy into something that is sustainable and scalable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cyanobacteria<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Photosynthetic bacteria, or cyanobacteria, are the most abundant life form on Earth. For several years, researchers have been attempting to “re-wire” the photosynthesis mechanisms of cyanobacteria to extract energy from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a bottleneck in terms of how much energy you can actually extract from photosynthetic systems, but no one understood where the bottleneck was,\u201d said Zhang. \u201cMost scientists assumed that the bottleneck was on the biological side, in the bacteria, but we\u2019ve found that a substantial bottleneck is actually on the material side.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cyanobacteria need lots of sunlight to grow \u2013 like the surface of a lake in the summertime. To extract the energy they produce through photosynthesis, the bacteria need to be attached to electrodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3D-printed electrodes <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Cambridge team 3D-printed custom electrodes out of metal oxide nanoparticles tailored to work with the cyanobacteria as they perform photosynthesis. The electrodes were printed as highly branched, densely packed pillar structures, like a tiny city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhang\u2019s team developed a printing technique that allows control over multiple length scales, making the structures highly customizable, which could benefit a wide range of fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe electrodes have excellent light-handling properties, like a high-rise apartment with lots of windows,\u201d said Zhang. \u201cCyanobacteria need something they can attach to and form a community with their neighbors. Our electrodes allow for a balance between lots of surface area and lots of light \u2013 like a glass skyscraper.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Efficient bioenergy production<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Once the self-assembling cyanobacteria were in their new \u2018wired\u2019 home, the researchers found that they were more efficient than other current bioenergy technologies, such as biofuels. The technique increased the amount of energy extracted by over an order of magnitude over other methods for producing bioenergy from photosynthesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was surprised we were able to achieve the numbers we did \u2013 similar numbers have been predicted for many years, but this is the first time that these numbers have been shown experimentally,\u201d said Zhang. \u201cCyanobacteria are versatile chemical factories. Our approach allows us to tap into their energy conversion pathway at an early point, which helps us understand how they carry out energy conversion so we can use their natural pathways for renewable fuel or chemical generation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research was supported in part by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Cambridge Trust, the Isaac Newton Trust and the European Research Council. Jenny Zhang is BBSRC David Phillips Fellow in the Department of Chemistry, and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference:<\/strong>
Xiaolong Chen et al. \u20183D-printed hierarchical pillar array electrodes for high performance semi-artificial photosynthesis<\/a>.\u2019 Nature Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1038\/s41563-022-01205-5<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also interesting:
<\/strong>Colonize and live on Mars thanks to cyanobacteria?<\/a>
Potential for medicine and biotechnology: Cyanobacteria<\/a>
Microbiologists are building bacteria that convert CO2 into food<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1730,"featured_media":359599,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[7738,126880,65002,127009,31729],"location":[55977],"internal_archives":[],"class_list":["post-359584","selected","type-selected","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-3d-printing-en","tag-bioenergy","tag-biofuel","tag-canobacteria","tag-photosynthesis","location-united-kingdom"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"featured_img":false,"coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/brenda-arnold\/","display_name":"Brenda Arnold"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on March 8, 2022","modified":"Updated on March 8, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on March 8, 2022 3:00 pm","modified":"Updated on March 8, 2022 3:00 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","tax_additional":{"category":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"],"slug":"category","name":"Categories"},"post_tag":{"linked":["3D printing<\/a>","bioenergy<\/a>","biofuel<\/a>","canobacteria<\/a>","Photosynthesis<\/a>"],"unlinked":["3D printing<\/span>","bioenergy<\/span>","biofuel<\/span>","canobacteria<\/span>","Photosynthesis<\/span>"],"slug":"post_tag","name":"Tags"},"language":{"linked":["EN<\/a>"],"unlinked":["EN<\/span>"],"slug":"language","name":"Tags"},"post_translations":{"linked":["pll_6227663c0c9ff<\/a>"],"unlinked":["pll_6227663c0c9ff<\/span>"],"slug":"post_translations","name":""},"location":{"linked":["United Kingdom<\/a>"],"unlinked":["United Kingdom<\/span>"],"slug":"location","name":"Locations"},"internal_archives":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"internal_archives","name":"Internal Archives"}},"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected\/359584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/selected"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359584"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=359584"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=359584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}