A toast to the enzyme cocktail

Fuel cells and hydrogen were the buzz for years in U.S. automotive industry, until foreign competitors began making waves with hybrids.

Problems with the H included the high cost of infrastructure and the fossil-fuel energy needed to make hydrogen stations work.

That could change if new research on enzymes is realized. A team of scientists from Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge National Lab and the University of Georgia has developed a way of producing hydrogen gas by combining enzymes and cellulosic materials from non-food sources with good old water, according to a news release.

They heat it up, call it an enzyme cocktail, and say it holds the promise of high-yield production, according to a research paper published in ChemSusChem (for Chemistry and Sustainability).

“Biohydrogen is produced in high yield from cellulosic materials and water in a one-pot process catalyzed by up to 14 enzymes and one coenzyme,” the abstract says.

“This assembly of enzymes results in non-natural catabolic pathways. These spontaneous reactions are conducted under modest reaction conditions (32 °C and atmospheric pressure).”

What do the chemistry folks out there think of this new find? Green Car Congress has quite a discussion going.