This Enzyme Turns Air Into Electricity – T3N – Digital Pioneers

The enzyme acts like a natural battery. (Photo: petrmalinak/Shutterstock)

Australian researchers have discovered an enzyme that can convert air into energy. In a study published in the famous specialized journal nature Scientists publish, Scientists have shown that the enzyme uses small amounts of hydrogen present in the air to generate electricity.

The discovery was made by a team of scientists from Monash University’s Biomedical Discovery Institute in Melbourne, Australia. It paves the way for the development of devices that can generate power literally from nothing. The team produced and studied a hydrogen-consuming enzyme derived from bacteria commonly found in soil.

The work showed that many bacteria in nutrient-poor environments use hydrogen from the atmosphere as an energy source. said Professor Chris Greening, who conducted the research with Bras. “But we didn’t know how they did it yet.”

Scientists were able to extract the enzyme responsible for using atmospheric hydrogen from a bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis. They have used several advanced techniques to study the structure and function of hydrogen oxidation in the atmosphere. With the help of cryo-electron microscopy, they were able to determine the atomic structure and electrical properties of the enzyme and achieve unprecedented precision. They also used electrochemistry to show that the purified enzyme can generate energy at very low concentrations of hydrogen.

The results show that the enzyme produced by the bacteria can act as a natural battery, producing a sustained electrical current from air or hydrogen. The enzyme is very stable and can function without problems even under extreme conditions. This discovery has great potential for the development of small air-powered devices as an alternative energy source for solar-powered devices.