Fuel From CO2 In Atmosphere - Possible With A Microorganism

Michael Adams, member of University of Georgia's Bioenergy Systerms Research Center has succeeded in finding a way to transform the atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) into useful biofuel. What this means is that the gas which is responsible for trapping Earth's heat in atmosphere, and therefore responsible for global warming, would soon be powering our engines. Adams says that he and his team have created a microorganism that mimics plants and absorbs the CO2 from atmosphere and then turn it into a bio-fuel. The roots of the research are into the process we've learned during science classes - called 'Photosynthesis'.

During Photosynthesis, plants use the Sun rays to transform CO2 and H2O into sugars which give the energy to the plants. The sugars can be fermented to produce Ethanol but the process of extracting the sugars is extremely difficult to adopt it for industrial production. The new process discovered by Adams and team eliminates the need of plants as middlemen, allowing carbon dioxide from air to be trapped and convert it into fuels and other chemicals.


Those who're interested in the scientific name of the microorganism that does it would be happy to know the name "Pyrococcus furiosus" aka rushing fireball. It eats up carbs in the super-heated ocean waters found near geothermal vents. Modifying the organism's genetic material, the research team created a new kind of the organism that survives on CO2 at much lower temperatures.

The discovery may allow humans to solve the problem of fuels and global warming in one go. It'd be interesting to know whether this process can get ready for industrial production.

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