MIT Researchers Harness Viruses to Split Water

[Bruce Nunnally]

A team of researchers at MIT has just announced that they have successfully modified a virus to split apart molecules of water, paving the way for an efficient and non-energy intensive method of producing hydrogen fuel. The team engineered a common, harmless bacterial virus to assemble the components needed to crack apart a molecule of water, yielding a fourfold boost in efficiency over similar processes.

Hydrogen has a lot of potential as an alternative fuel – it can be used in fuel cells to trigger a chemical reaction that generates carbon-free electricity, and the only byproducts are waste heat and water. However as of right now, most methods of generating hydrogen are either extremely energy intensive or utilize methane and release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Read More: http://inhabitat.com/2010/04/12/mit-researchers-harness-viruses-to-split-water/