After seeing how to drink water from the air, today we see an innovative research. In fact, a particular enzyme has been discovered that can literally transform air into electricity. Let’s see better what it is.
The important discovery was published in the journal Nature thanks to Monash University Melbourne. “We have long known that bacteria can use trace amounts of hydrogen present in the air as an energy source to help them grow and survive in harsh environments, such as the soil of Antarctica, the craters of volcanoes or the depths of the ocean, but until now we have never been able to understand the mechanism behind this extraordinary ability” explains Chris Greening, one of the coordinators of the study together with Rhys Grinter and Ashleigh Kropp.
To overcome this limit, the experts for the first time ever managed to extract and isolate the enzyme defined “here”resulting from the bacterium Mycobacterium smegmatis. Precisely from this study, it was discovered that the enzyme, unlike all the others studied up to now, it is able to produce energy even with lower hydrogen concentrations to atmospheric ones, corresponding to just 0.00005% of the air we breathe.
Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that it will be possible to preserve the purified enzyme even for long periods of time. Dr. Indeed, Kropp states: “It is surprisingly stable: it retains its abilities even after being frozen or heated up to 80 degrees”.
Apparently after the stone that generates electricity found in the Congo and leaving out the undoubted utility of this enzyme for all those bacteria that have to survive in decidedly extreme environments, we have probably just identified an alternative method of producing electricitywhich will perhaps also be able to resolve the current global energy situation.