New Algae discovered that can fix carbon and produce hydrogen

Microalgae are natural biocatalysts of hydrogen production. Their ability to convert solar energy to valuable compounds with minimal ecological footprint potentially places them as significant contributors to the clean-energy transition. Currently, algal hydrogen production, although promising, is not scalable because it is limited to oxygen-free conditions and is short-lived due to electron loss to other processes, mainly carbon fixation. Researchers from Tel Aviv University have shown that a strain of algae defective in thylakoid proton gradient regulation, called Dpgr5, bypasses both challenges simultaneously, leading to a prolonged 12-day hydrogen production in a mixed energy source environment in a 1-Litre setup. They found that Dpgr5 possess a repressed ability to fixate carbon and that this limitation is counterbalanced by an enhanced chloroplast-mitochondrion energetic exchange. This unique physiology supports the simplistic, yet robust and scalable, hydrogen production capability of Dpgr5.

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/pdf/S2666-3864(22)00098-4.pdf



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