Convert hydrogen gas into electricity, just do it. However, some soil bacteria succeed without much effort. The Huc enzyme appears to be their greatest asset.

Australian scientists succeeded in extracting concentrated Huc from the bacteria L mycobacterium smear, Obtain. This “natural battery” is surprisingly stable and can withstand temperatures from -80 to +80 degrees Celsius without losing potency or breaking down. The enzyme can be used in all kinds of home, garden, and kitchen equipment and even in electric motors as a replacement for a chemical battery, solar cell, or fossil fuel.

Huc Force
Microbiologist Ashley Krupp Monash University Engage in conversation with Saintias how are they discovery It’s time: “First, we allowed soil bacteria to grow in large quantities in the laboratory. Then we removed the special enzyme Huc, which converts hydrogen gas from the air into electricity. It’s easier to use pure Huc than live bacteria. Then we put Huc in a small circuit, so that it was It is possible to use the electrons generated from hydrogen to generate electricity and allow it to flow through an electrical circuit.

Krupp is very excited about the potential of the particular enzyme. “Huc can produce electricity to power small devices as an alternative to a battery. If we add Huc to a device and let it react with concentrated hydrogen, for example in a fuel cell, it will be able to generate more power. In this way, large devices can be powered.”

New energy source
Scientists have big plans for Hook. “Our goal is to use the Huc enzyme to generate energy,” says the researcher. “Currently we are producing milligrams of Huc in the lab. We want to increase this to grams or kilograms in the near future and use the enzyme to power small devices that typically run on batteries. You should think of watches, watches, smartwatches, wearable medical equipment or medical devices.” A simple sensor or computer circuit. Huc is a sustainable alternative to a battery or solar cell. This is our future vision for using Huc. We’re not there yet. We’re in the proof-of-concept phase now. We’ve shown that we can isolate the enzyme from bacteria and showed what Huc can do with it “.

Incredibly effective
The researchers themselves don’t fully understand why Huc works so well. “We are still looking into how stable and effective Huc is so that it can extract hydrogen from the air. It appears to be an exceptionally effective survival strategy for these particular soil bacteria,” Krupp explains. “What makes the material special is that it also works in an oxygen-rich environment. The air we breathe contains about 21 percent oxygen, which naturally works against an enzyme like Huc. But Huc has special modifications that allow it to get its energy from hydrogen gas though.” of oxygen-rich air.

This is of course primarily beneficial to bacteria in the first place. Soil bacteria often lack nutrients to survive, because they have to share available food with other microorganisms. Therefore, there are many bacteria that can go into a kind of hibernation mode when little food is available. Our bacteria do something different: They use the Huc enzyme to generate energy from hydrogen gas in the air. Even if the concentration is very low (0.00005%), it is always present and sufficient for the bacteria to survive.”

Even in the cold and heat
It was surprising that the Huc enzyme also works well in isolation. “We weren’t sure if the pure form of the enzyme would work just as well outside of bacteria, but our experiments showed that Huc can still generate energy from hydrogen even at a concentration twelve times lower than our atmosphere. That’s a lower concentration than our measuring equipment can detect.” It’s amazing how stable Huc is: the enzyme does not disintegrate and continues to generate electricity in freezing temperatures down to -80 degrees or heating up to 80 degrees C. This makes Huc ideal for use as a sustainable source of energy for bioelectrical devices.”