Microbes Churn Out Hydrogen at Record Rate

FiReaNGeL writes to mention that Penn State Researchers have improved on their original microbial electrolysis cell design bringing the resulting system up to better than 80 percent efficiency when considering all energy inputs and outputs. "By tweaking their design, improving conditions for the bacteria, and adding a small jolt of electricity, they increased the hydrogen yield to a new record for this type of system. 'We achieved the highest hydrogen yields ever obtained with this approach from different sources of organic matter, such as yields of 91 percent using vinegar (acetic acid) and 68 percent using cellulose,' said Logan. In certain configurations, nearly all of the hydrogen contained in the molecules of source material converted to usable hydrogen gas, an efficiency that could eventually open the door to bacterial hydrogen production on a larger scale."

BLOCK/BAN THIS ARTICLE

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

Quick, block and ban this article before the boss sees it.
If he had his way he will fill the water cooler with vinegar to try to increase our productivity.
(If you are working at EA I'm afraid its too late)

Re:BLOCK/BAN THIS ARTICLE

[Penguinshit (591885)]

As long as that vinegar is Chateau Petrus, I'm all for it.

Uhm

[lorenzino (1130749)]

This reminds me a lot of some Asimov books. So, are we getting there ?

Re:

[SatanicPuppy (611928)]

I sure hope so. Getting this sort of tech as a backyard/rooftop energy generator could be insanely useful. Off the grid for nothing...Hydrogen beats the crap out of batteries as far as energy storage, so high efficiency solar or this sort of biological solution used to produce hydrogen to power your house and your car...Wow. And 80% efficiency is pretty damn good, for a line of research that is still pretty primitive.

A biological system would (probably) be lower setup than a solar system as well, at least g

Re:Uhm

[Rei (128717)]

Hydrogen beats the crap out of batteries as far as energy storage

Not currently it doesn't. Top-of-the-line hydrogen-powered vehicles are about on par, range-wise, with top-of-the-line lithium-ion powered vehicles (for vehicles released this fall, say, compare a Roadster with an Equinox -- both 200 mile range). But they're notably less thermodynamically efficient and have worse performance. Honda has a prototype FCX that they say will be able to get 350 miles by using an undisclosed storage material, but storage materials always raise issues of their own (such as how much energy it takes to get the hydrogen in and out -- thus hurting the thermodynamic efficiency even more), and if you want to count vehicles that don't exist yet... Of course, if your energy source is hydrogen *to begin with*, sure, hydrogen would be a better choice present-day. We'll have to see how each respective technology advances. Personally, I'd rather we be driving largely on grid power instead of trying to store all our energy on the vehicle ;)

Getting this sort of tech as a backyard/rooftop energy generator could be insanely useful

You want them to eat your roof? You did read the article (or even the summary) and realize that these aren't photosynthetic bacteria, right? That will almost certainly come in the future, but that's not what we're dealing with here.

A biological system would (probably) be lower setup than a solar system as well, at least given current tech.

But maintenance can be very tricky. Bacteria mutate, get attacked, and so on. Plus, you need to keep feeding them and removing waste products. This is certainly viable, present-day, in industrial scale applications, but it probably won't scale down very well any time soon.

I will agree with you on one thing:

Wow. And 80% efficiency is pretty damn good, for a line of research that is still pretty primitive.

It sure is.

Re:

[Cassius Corodes (1084513)]

Bacteria are fairly low maintenance - so the risk form attack is low as they can mutate to defend against the invasion. However as long as you keep feeding them the right stuff they will continuously optimise for the task :) (although depending on their metabolism they may see the production of hydrogen as inefficient way of reproducing themselves and switch to a different by-product that works faster)

Re:

[Firethorn (177587)]

although depending on their metabolism they may see the production of hydrogen as inefficient way of reproducing themselves and switch to a different by-product that works faster

That's indeed part of the problem from what I've heard for using bacteria to produce stuff.

Likely any home user would have to 'scrub' his system every so often as non-hydrogen producing bacteria start emerging and taking over. Hopefully the fix would be equivalent as opening a yeast packet for making bread is today.

Still, I don't s

Re:

[jchernia (590097)]

Keep in mind that septic tanks work on this principle, just drop new tablets of the bacteria in every once in a while and processing resumes, clear water leeches out and there is a ready supply of food for them. Been in use on small scale for a very long time. Composting also works with a constant supply of food on a small scale.

As for eating your roof, there are already bacteria that do that, but they have to be in the belly of a termite to survive, likewise if some of these were to get out, I don't imagin

Re:Uhm

[2ms (232331)]

Why are you comparing batteries to fuel cells in "thermodynamic efficiency". Batteries do not have "thermodynamic efficiency". A battery is not an engine, it's a container of an electrical potential that was put there probably by burning coal. You do realize that's where something like 80% of grid power comes from right? The battery's analog in current automotive propulsion is the gas tank in your Honda or whatever. Find out what the "thermodynamic efficiency" of the process of creating the electricity and then getting it into your lithium ion batteries, and then we can start making useful comparisons to other systems for automotive propulsion. Also, talking about range as if the range of a fuel cell vehicle was directly comparable to the range of a simple/straight EV (ie no production of power on bard, only storage) has limited validity too -- hydrogen vehicles are able to refill their hydrogen tanks about as fast as current gas cars fill their's, if not faster. EV's on the other hand, need to sit at a charger for a minimum of a couple hours, and if battery longevity is desired, really need to charge over an entire night. By the way, for those of you who don't know about it the Fuel Cell Equinox [autoweek.com] is extremely impressive. It's a mass produced, production fuel cell vehicle with the full interior room of a normal Equinox, that'll be driven by 1000 "owners" in the 3 major cities next year. It's been quite a wakeup call to the rest of the auto industry.

Re:

[Rei (128717)]

Thermodynamics applies to *everything*, not just heat engines. Are you confusing thermodynamics as a whole with the Carnot limit?

All processes are lossy. Batteries, however, are very minimally lossy. Charging and discharging a lithium-ion battery loses virtually no power. Not so with hydrogen. The best you'll do with a fuel cell is something like 70% efficiency. Likewise, excepting these special cases of direct hydrogen generation, creating the hydrogen itself is also a lossy process. And there's los

Re:

[InvalidError (771317)]

To translate, that's 342 Wh/kg (compared to 150-200 Wh/kg for Li-ion. And it has a lower discharge rate and doesn't lose capacity like Li-ion.

Much of the self-discharge we see in contemporary Li-ion batteries comes from built-in monitoring circuitry made necessary thanks to classic lithium chemistry's volatility. More advanced lithium technologies like AltairNano's NanoSafe will drastically improve lithium cell's reliability, durability, safety, high-current charge/discharge capability along with a few othe

Re:

[2ms (232331)]

Believe me I'm not confusing it with the Carnot efficiency. Yes, of course, everything in the world obeys the 3 laws of thermodynamics...

You are missing the point.

Talking about how much energy is lost in the transfer of electricity in and out of batteries is one of the least significant inefficiencies in the process of getting electricity in and out of EVs (you yourself tout it is being low). Comparing this efficiency to the overall efficiency of the electricity production process of a fuel cell while ign

Re:

[Fordiman (689627)]

"Hydrogen beats the crap out of batteries as far as energy storage"

That really depends on the drivetrain involved. For example, Natural Gas ICE's, like those used in city busses, top out at 30% Carnot (pretty damned low). Our best HFC electric drivetrain will put out 35% Ideal (higher than 35% Carnot) at high load, but the number of cells needed to effect that kind of output are high (heavier 'engine'). Include the 80% efficiency from generation, and the 25% efficiency hit for making the hydrogen liquid,

This is Slavery!

[eln (21727)]

This is absolutely horrible, and I demand it be stopped! These researchers are advocating the mass enslavement of innocent microbes. These microbes will be forced to work nonstop on Hydrogen production from the moment they are born to the moment they are finally literally worked to death. Multiple generations of microbes will toil endlessly in these bacterial concentration camps, with no relief in sight!

We must stop the senseless abuse of microbial rights! We must fight for the smallest and most vulnerable among us! Stop this horror now!

Re:This is Slavery!

[Jeremi (14640)]

These microbes will be forced to work nonstop on Hydrogen production from the moment they are born to the moment they are finally literally worked to death

Relax, dude. We've fixed them up with an excellent simulation of their society at the peak of its development. They'll go happily about their simulated lives, and never know they are just sitting in a vat generating power for us.

Re:

[pclminion (145572)]

Oh, the humanity! Imagine all the poor little penicillium molds in your bleu cheese, suffering and toiling to no good end. And the wretched yeasts which live in your beer, enslaved to a life of ethanol production. And don't even get me started on the fungal rights issues associated with kombucha tea.

Re:

[ravenwing_np (22379)]

I wonder when we will see people trying to purchase Vegan Hydrogen. Because I could probably sell it for a 2x markup and have a ready made audience.

My personal yield...

[Penguinshit (591885)]

I have a high hydrocarbon yield from beer. Does that help?

Cabbage consumption increases yield dramatically!

288 percent increase over electricity input

[explosivejared (1186049)]

From the PSU Press Release [psu.edu]:

"This process produces 288 percent more energy in hydrogen than the electrical energy that is added to the process," says Logan.

That illustrates just how big the jump in efficiency is here. These bacteria are amazing little energy multipliers. It's quite astonishing!

Re:288 percent increase over electricity input

[pushing-robot (1037830)]

Yes, but the bacteria are producing it from decaying plant material. You'd have to see how much greenhouse gases are being produced by the bacteria as they decompose the vinegar/cellulose/whatever before calling this a better solution than conventional electrolysis.

Re:288 percent increase over electricity input

[Gregb05 (754217)]

It's 0 sum with how much greenhouse gas is being captured by growing the plant.

The only thing that ISN'T 0-sum would be pulling greenhouse gases out from hundreds of feet underground; Which we already do.

Re:

[pushing-robot (1037830)]

Plants get carbon from the ground too. In fact, industrialized agriculture has been depleting soil organic carbon for decades from overfertilization and overproduction. If we start mass-producing even more crops to supply our energy needs, we may trade sucking carbon from miles below the ground for carbon inches below the ground, but the problem will remain the same.

Re:288 percent increase over electricity input

[Angstroem (692547)]

Uhm, but you are aware that the decaying plant material can't give off more CO2 or other Carbon-based greenhouse gases than it originally consisted of. Close cycle and such.

Grow a tree. Burn a tree. No increase in greenhouse gas.

As long as you don't use your conventional gas-powered buzz saw to bring it down and an F350 to haul it to your place...

petroleum has little to do with fertilizer

[khallow (566160)]

Methane from natural gas is the primary hydrogen source for fixing atmospheric nitrogen to form ammonia. And that in turn is the primary contribution of fossil fuel deposits to fertilizer.

Re:

[Jimmy_B (129296)]

<blockquote>Yes, but the bacteria are producing it from decaying plant material. You'd have to see how much greenhouse gases are being produced by the bacteria as they decompose the vinegar/cellulose/whatever before calling this a better solution than conventional electrolysis.</blockquote>
Incorrect. The bacteria will release carbon dioxide, yes, but that same carbon was taken out of the air by the plants they're decomposing. Electrolysis doesn't release carbon dioxide per se, but it uses electr

Re:

[pushing-robot (1037830)]

Electrolysis doesn't release carbon dioxide per se, but it uses electricity which comes from coal or oil, to produce hydrogen that contains less energy than the oil you had to burn to make it

I think you miss the point of hydrogen power. As nice as it would be to have vehicles powered by clean, renewable energy, mechanical engineers have thus far been stymied in designing solar plants, wind farms, or hydroelectric dams to fit stock passenger vehicles. Fortunately, other engineers who more frequently "think

Re:

[mikael (484)]

What worries me is where all the H20 from the hydrocarbon burning process is ending up, never mind the CO2

Re:288 percent increase over electricity input

[Waffle Iron (339739)]

What worries me is where all the H20 from the hydrocarbon burning process is ending up, never mind the CO2

It's ending up in our lakes, rivers and streams! Why aren't more people focused on this crisis??

A good step... but not carbon neutral.

[compumike (454538)]

The 80% figure is impressive. But beware of the efficiency numbers they quote. This isn't the full fuel cycle. You've still got to compress and distribute hydrogen, which takes a lot (gases take lots of work to compress). For a vehicle, burning it isn't too efficient maybe 30-40%, and fuel cells aren't quite there yet.

Additionally, with any kind of electrolytically-driven process like this one, there's a HUGE efficiency penalty once you increase the flow rates to be anything substantial. And you need to, because otherwise the amount of hydrogen produced per fuel cell area would be tiny. And then, at that point, you've got the problem of lots of carbon to dispose of. Guess what -- this working microbial fuel cell takes C,H,O in as vinegar or cellulose, and outputs H2 and CO2! Do you really call that 'carbon neutral' as a fuel source? It's still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, just less of it per Joule of useful energy.

Still, this is a great direction for them to keep going... there are very interesting things you can do with hydrogen, even to extend existing liquid fuel stocks (i.e. crude oil to gasoline) by hydrogenation. (Much cheaper than building lots of fuel cells... but not carbon-neutral.)

--
Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation. [nerdkits.com]

Re:

[camperdave (969942)]

I would imagine that a certain percentage of the carbon goes into making the next gen of microbes.

Re:

[Gregb05 (754217)]

Guess what -- this working microbial fuel cell takes C,H,O in as vinegar or cellulose, and outputs H2 and CO2! Do you really call that 'carbon neutral' as a fuel source? It's still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, just less of it per Joule of useful energy.

Yes, I do call it carbon neutral. The plants take in C02, H20 and E to create vinegar and cellulose, and due to thermodynamics, plants can't create more H20 and C02 than they take in; so by definition it's carbon neutral.

Re:

[timeOday (582209)]

Yes, I do call it carbon neutral. The plants take in C02, H20 and E to create vinegar and cellulose, and due to thermodynamics, plants can't create more H20 and C02 than they take in; so by definition it's carbon neutral.

Exactly, and the quicker we go carbon neutral the better. (Though after burning so many fossil fuels, we're already way behind. What we *really* need is a car that poops carbon bricks we can bury back in the coal mines).

Re:

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

Yes, I do call it carbon neutral. The plants take in CO2, H2O and E to create vinegar and cellulose, and due to thermodynamics, plants can't create more H2O and CO2 than they take in; so by definition it's carbon neutral.

Except that CO2 is now airborne again instead of locked inside the plants, when they could have carried it deep into the soil and become fossil fuels.

By your logic, the planet as a whole is carbon neutral as nothing from the outside is adding carbon. Indeed, putting stuff into orbit and on interplanetary and interstellar probes is carbon negative (the carbon put into the atmosphere from the combustion during launch was already here).

With that mindset, it sounds like the only solutions for a carbon negativ

Re:A good step... but not carbon neutral.

[Surt (22457)]

I believe the tradition is that carbon neutral means into the air in modern times.

When you burn fossil fuels, you release carbon into the air that was not fixed into the fuel in modern times. So you release 'new' carbon into the air. Carbon positive.

When you burn these fuels, you re-release carbon into the air which was fixed in the last year. This is carbon neutral (no change to atmospheric carbon over short time horizon).

If you take some plants that have fixed some carbon and bury them under a continental fold, that's carbon negative.

Re:

[hardburn (141468)]

Guess what -- this working microbial fuel cell takes C,H,O in as vinegar or cellulose, and outputs H2 and CO2! Do you really call that 'carbon neutral' as a fuel source?

Yes, because that's what "carbon neutral" means. You only release as much carbon as you took out of the biosphere in the first place. It's not taking carbon that had been sequestered away for millions of years and releasing it over a 100 year timespan.

Of course, it's not 100% efficient, so it's still only a fancy battery. The additiona

Re:

[Erioll (229536)]

Of course, it's not 100% efficient, so it's still only a fancy battery. The additional power has to come from somewhere, and hopefully it won't be oil or coal.

Kind of. A section from the article is enlightening here:

Even with the small amount of electricity applied, the hydrogen ultimately provides more energy as a fuel than the electricity needed to drive the reactor. Incorporating all energy inputs and outputs, the overall efficiency of the vinegar-fueled system is better than 80 percent, far better than the efficiency for generation of the leading alternative fuel, ethanol.

Which is implying that if you throw this hydrogen into a fuel cell as the source of el

Re:A good step... but not carbon neutral.

[GryMor (88799)]

I wonder what the actual efficiency is if you take into account sequestering the CO2. It should be feasible since you have to sequester the hydrogen anyway and the CO2 is produced in the reactor, that is, fixed infrastructure, rather than in the eventual fuel consuming entity.

Hell, how much net CO2 could you pull out of the atmosphere with an un fertilized acre of land and a reactor thats producing the hydrogen/electricity needed to fuel the entire endeavor? How does it compare to the real efficiency of current solar cells (after taking into account manufacturing costs/outputs)?

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Well .. better for carbon that was already circulating in the ecosystem to
be emitted as CO2 than for carbon from fossil fuels - that was previous sequestered - to be emitted. This is recirculation of carbon, rather than injection of new supplies..

Burn the hydogen onsite

[cryfreedomlove (929828)]

Why not just burn the hydogen onsite for electricity generation? Then you don't have to spend energy compressing or moving the hydrogen. Just put the new electricity on the grid. We'll all be driving plug in electric cars before the portable hydrogen economy ever gets going.

What about the CO2

[Iberian (533067)]

Considering the byproduct is CO2 we would have to come up with a solution to that problem as well. Granted it is better than having CO2 spewed from each tailpipe concetrated at a single powerplant and in theory contained in some way but for what use?

An idea of what do with the CO2

[Radon360 (951529)]

Here's one possible solution:

Bubble it into water in which you release into shallow man-made ponds in order to accelerate algae growth. Harvest the resultant algae, squeeze the oil out of it and make biodiesel. Put the leftovers from that into a fermenter and get what amount of ethanol you can from it. Then dump whatever is leftover from that onto fields to decompose and enrich the soil.

Yes, you are eventually liberating the carbon again in multiple paths, but it comes down to whether you want to actually sequester the carbon, or are willing to recycle it through a number of diversified fuels as many times as possible.

In Soviet Russia

[Degrees (220395)]

In America, researchers apply a jolt of electricity to their wastewater bacteria. In Soviet Russia, the brew tases you! Don't Tase me, brew!

Re:

[Surt (22457)]

That is a fantastic meme mashup, thanks.

Conservation of energy?

[AJWM (19027)]

bringing the resulting system up to better than 80 percent efficiency when considering all energy inputs and outputs. (emphasis added)

So like, dudes, where does that other 20% of the energy go? The Phantom Zone? No, wait, that'd be an energy output too.

Maybe the system just gets heavier.

Fuel Cell Bioterrorism

[Bones3D_mac (324952)]

Just a thought here, but once this system reached a one-to-one ratio with our current fossil-fuel usage, it may only take a single asshat to engineer and deploy a virus capable of crippling an entire country.

Somehow, I doubt a city/state/country-wide quarantine on vehicles (and other devices) using such a system would be a trivial task.

donttasemebrew

[dwater (72834)]

Regarding the tag...what ever happened to that guy?

Re:

[IndustrialComplex (975015)]

Even if we converted 500 million barrels of water per day into pure hydrogen and launched it into space directly it would take over 40 million years before we ran out.

3.26x10^20 gallons of water on earth
divided by
(5.00x10^8 x 42) gallons used per day /365

~42 million.

Not on my list of priorities to worry about.

Re:

[Copid (137416)]

My guess is that we have enough H in our oceans to keep us going for quite a while. If somebody asked me which molecules I'd be happiest "wasting" in the pursuit of energy, I'd probably go for H2O. We have lots of it, as long as whatever we're doing with it also provides us enough energy to efficiently extract it from sea water.

Anybody want to run the numbers to figure out what percentage of our water we'd be losing per year to sustain our current level of energy use assuming the efficiencies quoted in

Re:scared of hydrogen

[aktbar (22510)]

What happens if you repeat the cycle of: {snip}
an infinite amount of times? You run out of water.

There are a few reasons to not worry about this:

(1) The volume of the earths oceans is enough that if we were destroying water in them at the rate at which we burn oil, it would take a few hundred million years to run out. We wouldn't be destroying it at that rate (I would guess, since you can make a lot of hydrogen from just a little water), but even if we were we have a while to figure out a solution.

(2) Hydrogen and ozone react really well -- the hydrogen wouldn't make it out of the atmosphere before it got bound back up as water.

The down side of (2) is that we could damage the ozone layer with leaked hydrogen (http://gcep.stanford.edu/research/factsheets/effects_climate.html [stanford.edu])

Re:

[ookabooka (731013)]

I asked my astronomy teacher about this in high school, apparently hydrogen is so reactive that it'll combine with atmospheric O2 before it gets high enough in the atmosphere to escape. Helium on the other hand will eventually leave earth as it has escape velocity at the temperatures at the highest level of the atmosphere.