Metagenomics Meets Electrochemistry: Utilizing the Huge Catalytic Potential From the Uncultured Microbial Majority for Energy-Storage.

ABSTRACT: Hydrogen can in the future serve as an advantageous carrier of renewable energy if its production via water electrolysis and utilization in fuel cells are realized with high energy efficiency and non-precious electrocatalysts. In an unprecedented novel combination of structured electrodes with hydrogen converting enzymes from the uncultured and thus largely inaccessible microbial majority (>99%) we address this challenge. The geometrically defined electrodes with large specific surface area allow for low overpotentials and high energy efficiencies to be achieved. Enzymatic hydrogen evolution electrocatalysts are used as alternatives to noble metals. The enzymes are harnessed from the environmental microbial DNA (metagenomes) of hydrothermal vents exhibiting dynamic hydrogen and oxygen conc

SUBMITTER: Adam N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7287016 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature