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Published online 24 July 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.972
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Enzyme structure reveals key ingredients for making hydrogen
Iron and carbon monoxide lie at the heart of third and final hydrogenase structure.
Iron and carbon monoxide are the crucial ingredients that nature uses to process hydrogen, according to researchers. Resolving the structure of the last of the three known hydrogenase enzymes has excited chemists, who are keen to follow nature’s clear advice and develop their own hydrogen catalysts for energy applications.
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Are you guys sure that BP and Shell and their friends will approve of this activity...not kidding!
I don't agree with Bob. I think that the oil companies will embrace the technology of artificial photosynthesis as the new way to produce hydrocarbon fuels. This would allow us to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, combine it with water and, using the energy of sunlight, turn these two raw materials into carbohydrates which can be refined into traditional hydrocarbon fuels. This single technology could at the same time reverse the effect of human induced climate change and provide us with a virtually unlimited source of hydrocarbon fuel.
The bigger problem with hydrogen will be storage and transport, not production. Ken http://www.kenstech.com
It would be great to be in a position to reject hydrogen in some application based on transport difficulties. A glut of cheap, available energy was essential to the advances of the last two centuries, it's good to know there could be many cheap, clean alternatives--even if they pose logistical difficulties.
It is nice to hear the voice of nature, by means of the crystal structures, insisting the usage of Fe and CO in the synthetic models to produce dihydrogen. But it may be considered that CO ligands inhibits the activity of the isolated enzymes and adsorbs on the electrode surface in the case synthetic models when it is subjected to electrochemistry to produce dihydrogen. So it may be nice to not hear the voice of nature always.