Researchers in the US have used cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) to covert CO2 into valuable organic chemicals.
Good conversion rates of 65% were obtained and the authors say that the system could be developed to harvest a range of organic compounds from phototrophs (organisms that carry out photon capture to produce energy, like algae). They add that the tool will facilitate future research on photosynthetic production of biofuels and chemicals and new insights into mechanisms for using cyanobacteria for carbon re-distribution.
Read the ‘HOT’ EES article:
Photo-catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide to organic acids by a recombinant cyanobacterium incapable of glycogen storage
Damian Joseph Carrieri, Troy Paddock, Pinching Maness, Michael Seibert and Jianping Yu
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE23181F
