Engineer's Use Foam to Capture Carbon and Covert it into Sugar for Biofuel Production

Biofuel production is an area of study that is growing in popularity amongst the scientific community. This is because of the general consensus that we need environmentally friendly fuel alternatives. It is because of this new found popularity that amazing developments are being made every day. Two engineers from the University of Cincinnati might have just made the coolest. They have found a way to capture and remove CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into biofuel.

The two engineers are Assistant Professor David Wendell and Jacob Todd. In order to make this process work they ended up creating an artificial photosynthetic material. This material is made up of a complex mix from foam that is injected with frog enzymes. These enzymes, when brought out into the sun, happen to convert CO2 into sugar and oxygen. This is important because the sugar created could then be converted into ethanol or biofuel.

A closer look at the carbon capturing foam shows the complexities involved in creating it. The foam is composed of bacterial, plant, and frog & fungal enzymes. Together they are able to perform the photosynthesis needed to capture and remove the carbon dioxide. The reason that the engineers decided to use foam was because it showed that it could effectively contain all of the enzymes while taking in the sunlight and air needed to start the photosynthesis process.

Perhaps the biggest piece to this news are the results of their study. The engineers have stated that they were able to achieve a much higher percentage of energy conversion than what could normal be obtained through natural photosynthesis. This is because the foam does not need to divert some of it's energy to help maintain life. It can simply take all of the energy and convert it in larger quantities because of this sole reason.

This discovery is amazing and could lead to less crops being destroyed in order to produce biofuels. It will be interesting to see what steps the engineers take to make this production more feasible for a larger scale operation. More technology and experimenting will need to be conducted in order to get these answers. Stay tuned to Associated Content to find out the latest developments regarding this amazing discovery.

Sources:

1. Steven Mottor, My own Review, 2010

2. Univeristy of Cincinnati, http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=11558, 2010