Electromicrobiological concentration cells are an overlooked potential energy conservation mechanism for subsurface microorganisms.

ABSTRACT: Thermodynamics has predicted many different kinds of microbial metabolism by determining which pairs of electron acceptors and donors will react to produce an exergonic reaction (a negative net change in Gibbs free energy). In energy-limited environments, such as the deep subsurface, such an approach can reveal the potential for unexpected or counter-intuitive energy sources for microbial metabolism. Up until recently, these thermodynamic calculations have been carried out with the assumption that chemical species appearing on the reactant and product side of a reaction formula have a constant concentration, and thus do not count towards net concentration changes and the overall direction of the reaction. This assumption is reasonable considering microorganisms are too small (~1 μm) for an

SUBMITTER: Marshall IPG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11371792 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature