<
https://theconversation.com/meet-the-microbes-that-transform-toxic-carbon-monoxide-into-valuable-biofuel-240066>
"Microbes are hungry. All the time. And they live everywhere, in enormous
numbers. We might not see them with the naked eye, but they are in soils,
lakes, oceans, hydrothermal vents, our homes, and even in and on our own
bodies. And they don’t just hang out there. They are always eating. All
together, they eat so much that they influence the elemental cycles of the
entire planet.
Many of the microbes living on our planet do their utmost to keep these
elemental cycles running in perfect balance. The fact of the matter is, though,
that human interventions have significantly shifted the balance of more than
one of them.
That sounds rather grim – and in part it is. It is time for a change. And the
key to change might lie in the simple trait that we share with every living
organism on Earth. Everything needs food, from the microscopically small to the
biggest blue whales. For microbes, food can include pretty much anything. Some
microbes feed on apples, others prefer milk sugars (lactose) and help us make
yogurt and cheese. And many, many microbes like the taste of waste.
This is extremely handy when it comes to cleaning our sewage water, for
example. Billions of microbes in wastewater treatment plants happily gobble up
all nutrients in the water that’s flushed down our drains. This reduces our
risk of getting sick and helps improve surface water quality. Pretty amazing,
right?
Some microbes on our planet can turn their food into our fuels. And they, too,
feed on waste. For four years, I have studied fuel-producing microbes that eat
carbon monoxide – a highly toxic, flammable gas that is generated, among other
things, during steel production. Currently, the steel industry produces
approximately 2 billion tonnes of steel per year, and carbon monoxide comprises
between 20% and 30% of their waste gases. That waste carbon monoxide is
currently burnt to produce carbon dioxide. Less toxic, but quite harmful still.
But carbon monoxide-consuming microbes could turn these vast quantities of
waste gas into green fuel."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
