Researchers Discover Enzyme That Harnesses Light To Make Hydrocarbons (acs.org) 55
Researchers from the Biosciences and Biotechnologies Institute of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission have discovered a new light-driven enzyme, christened fatty acid photodecarboxylase (FAP), that uses blue light to drive the removal of carboxyl groups from fatty acids to form alkanes or alkenes. Such an enzyme could be used as fuel with no further modification. The Biological SCENE reports: FAP joins a select group of so-called photoenzymes, including DNA-repair enzymes called photolyases, that use light for catalysis on their own rather than functioning as part of a larger complex such as photosystems I or II, which are used by plants and algae for photosynthesis. FAP contains flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), which commonly serves as a redox cofactor in biological reactions. In the case of FAP, however, FAD absorbs blue light to reach an excited state that abstracts an electron from the carboxylate group of a C12 to C18 fatty acid, which then decarboxylates to yield an alkane or alkene. The study has been published in the journal Science. Further reading: Ars Technica
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Can Orion Slave Girls [google.com] photosynthesize?
This is Slashdot (Score:2, Funny)
There's already an overabundance of "fap" enzymes here.
Now, this is news for nerds! (Score:1)
Let the fapping begin!
no thank you (Score:1)
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Bilan is carbon neutral
Where does the removed carbonyl group goes? I wonder how you are going to avoid a CO2 molecule to be emitted in the end.
Re:no thank you (Score:5, Interesting)
Hello anonymous chemist, I would think that the more useful application for this enzyme is to convert abundant plant derived fatty acids into suitable high weight molecular precursors for plastic synthesis in a post peak-oil economy, as the costs of crude oil derived hydrocarbons becomes more and more onerous.
Coupled with some of the other inorganic catalysts used in crude refinement (to increase the fraction of lighter alkanes, and thus improve fuel oil yields from paraffin rich crude sources, such as tar sand) it might even be able to partially bolster the demand for fuel oil, but you are correct that it is more economical to just burn the fatty acid in appropriate engines. (Trans-esters of fatty acids, processed with lye and methanol, are the bread and butter of existing biodiesel fuels.)
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Another chemist here. The resulting alkanes have minimal utility for plastic production since they are inert and WAY too expensive. Using this process for fuel purposes is also WAY uneconomical as it will never compete with bioethanol. No point in a special blue-light catalyzed reaction when standard fermentation gives us a fuel at 1/10th the cost.
The main use for the research is that it was cool. Not everything that makes C&E News has any impact on society. In fact, I would guestimate that 0.1% of
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but you are correct that it is more economical to just burn the fatty acid in appropriate engines. (Trans-esters of fatty acids, processed with lye and methanol, are the bread and butter of existing biodiesel fuels.)
Chemical transesterification of fats into biodiesel produces an inferior fuel. Green diesel, where fats are hydrocracked, produces a superior product. Most engines run on gasoline anyway, and we could be fueling them with Butanol.
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Peak oil is a myth. We're going to largely switch to renewables within a few decades, and after that, we're going to have a massive oversupply of oil, and that's not even counting the massive reserves in the rest of the solar
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" If you want to use the acids produced from fat or vegetable oils as some kind of fuel, why not just burn the fat and save the expense in time of producing the high molecular weight hydrocarbons from them? "
I'd prefer to use a band of blue LEDs around my fatty tummy and piss the acid out while exhaling the CO2 and getting thinner and thinner.
I guess some such gimmick will appear on Goop any minute now.
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Of course it is, but if the carbon that is released during combustion was sourced from the atmosphere or ocean in recent times, them it is a so call Carbon Neutral cycle.
You exhale carbon dioxide. Oh noes!
Gee, I wonder who's funding this research? (Score:2)
[cough]petroleum company[cough]
I think we'd be better off funding research to deal with the overabundance of carbon dioxide. But let's do everything we can to avoid weaning our society off the internal combustion engine. Surely wouldn't want to leave that in the dustbin where it belongs would we?
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"avoid weaning our society off the internal combustion engine."
This is easier said than done. And it is a global problem not a localized situation. Any migration away from internal combustion engines running on hydrocarbons is a 50 to 100 year process. The entire world runs on hydrocarbons and so far the alternatives are still in their Model T phase. And it is not only the vehicles it is the infrastructure needed to support these vehicles that will end up being a long drawn out and expensive project. Look a
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China is investing heavily in electric cars, to the point that 352,000 electric cars were registered in 2016, compared to 159,000 electric cars in the USA. Most of the Chinese cars were produced in China by Chinese companies. In 2014 president Xi Jinping launched a strategy get China in the lead as a producer of electric cars, with a stated goal of getting 1/5 of all cars in China to be either electric or hybrid trough subsidies of those types of cars.
So, assuming GP is located somewhere in the USA, it is n
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You shouldn't go off population but something like number of drivers, cars, or some other derived value. From what I can google the US has more cars than China.
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Re: Gee, I wonder who's funding this research? (Score:2)
No, we only have 30 years left to get CO2 neutral. We do not have 100 years left or even 50.
This is carbon neutral (Score:3)
Dude, this is carbon neutral. Draw a control volume, do some chemistry and thermo... the carbon for this hydrocarbon comes from the atmosphere. Upon combustion, it goes back into the atmosphere.
As a bonus. not all hydrocarbon from this process needs to be burned. Sequester it in underground caverns or beneath the sea, like hydrate deposits, and you'll effectively be taking carbon out of the atmosphere.
This is a very interesting development with a lot of promise!
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Given that the supporting agencies are listed in the manuscript itself, there's no need to wonder.
"This work was supported by grants from L’Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) (MUSCA ANR-13-JSV5-0005 to Y.L-B. and A*MIDEX ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02 to G.P.), the European Union (EU) (Sun2Chem project of ERASynBio), the French Infrastructure for Integrated Structural Biology (ANR-10-INSB-05-01), the Proteomics French Infrastructure (ANR-10-INBS-08-01), and the HelioBiotec platform funded by the EU, the r
Burning the enzyme???? (Score:2, Interesting)
I would think that burning the expensive enzyme (instead of the fuel it produces) is quite wasteful.....
FAP (Score:2)
And they say scientists don't have a sense of humor.