Academics Andre's Research Biocuriosities Books Graduate School History of Science Hot off the Press Igor's Research Interdisciplinarity Molecule of the Month Open Access Philip's Research Philosophy of Science Physics Physicsworld.com
Backreaction Ceclia's Blog at PHD Comics Cocktail Party Physics Cosmic Variance The Daily Transcript Easternblot Everyday Scientist The Evilutionary Biologist Freelancing Science The Futile Cycle Good Math, Bad Math iMechanica in singulo Incoherently Scattered Ponderings Juniorprof Klara Stefflova Life of a Lab Rat The Loom Metadatta Mixed States Morning Coffee Physics Not Even Wrong Notes from the biomass Notional Slurry OpenScience Project Pharyngula PLoS Blog Ponderings of a fool Recombinants The Sandwalk SciAm Observations ScienceBlogs Scientific Clearing House Shtetl-Optimized Three-toed Sloth Uncertain Principles What's New by Bob Park
Hydrogen gas is an unusual substance. Normally, it is stable and must be coaxed with powerful catalysts to enter into chemical reactions. But when mixed with oxygen, a tiny spark will set off an explosive chain reaction. Hydrogen gas holds great promise to be the greenest of green energy sources. It has many advantages: compared with many fuels, it releases a lot of energy for its weight, and the reaction forms only energy and pure water. It has substantial disadvantages, however. It is dangerous to store, and it is difficult to perform the reaction in a controlled, non-explosive manner. Currently, the fuel cells being developed for use in hydrogen-powered vehicles use costly platinum catalysts to perform this reaction. Researchers are now looking to nature for other alternatives.
Enzymes that split hydrogen gas have evolved at least three separate times in the history of life on the Earth. These enzymes are used either to split hydrogen gas for use as energy, or to create hydrogen gas as a product of their reaction. Three examples are shown here. At the top is a nickel-iron hydrogenase (PDB entry 2frv), in the center is an iron-iron hydrogenase (PDB entry 1feh), and at the bottom is an iron hydrogenase (PDB entry 3dag and 3f47). As the names imply, all of them use metal ions in their reactions.
Read the rest by David Goodsell at the RCSB PDB
Biocurious is written by Andre Brown and Philip Johnson, since 2005. Content of the weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
