2019 – Posted in: Daily News – Tags: biofuel, green fuel, methane

GREEN FUEL BY METHANE-EATING BACTERIA

For: Preliminary & Mains
Topic covers: Process, Importance, Green Fuel, Methane.

News Flash

Scientists have identified an enzyme that helps some bacteria remove methane from the environment and convert it into a usable fuel.

Known for their ability to methanotrophic bacteria have long fascinated researchers. A team from the Northwestern University in the US found that the enzyme responsible for the methane-methanol conversion catalyses this reaction at a site that contains just one copper ion.

Objective

The study provides a major leap forward in understanding how bacteria methane-to-methanol conversion.
The finding could lead to newly designed, human-made catalysts that can convert methane (a highly potent greenhouse gas) to readily usable methanol with the same effortless mechanism.

How

The identity and structure of the metal ions responsible for catalysis have remained elusive for decades. By identifying the type of copper center involved, researchers have laid the foundation for determining how nature carries out one of its most challenging reactions.

The study, showed that by oxidising methane and converting it to methanol, methanotrophic bacteria (or “methanotrophs”) can pack a one-two punch.

Findings

Not only are they removing a harmful greenhouse gas from the environment, they are also generating a readily usable, sustainable fuel for automobiles, electricity and more.
Current industrial processes to catalyse a methane-to-methanol reaction require tremendous pressure and extreme temperatures, reaching higher than 1,300 degrees Celsius.
Methanotrophs, however, perform the reaction at room temperature and “for free.”
While copper sites are known to catalyse methane-to-methanol conversion in human-made materials, methane-to-methanol catalysis at a monocopper site under ambient conditions is unprecedented.

Way Forward

If scientists/ researchers can develop a complete understanding of how they perform this conversion at such mild conditions, they can optimise their own catalysts.

Methane

Methane is gas that is found in small quantities in Earth’s atmosphere. Methane is the simplest hydrocarbon, consisting of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas.
Methane is flammable, and is used as a fuel worldwide. It is a principal component of natural gas. Burning methane in the presence of oxygen releases carbon dioxide and water vapor
It is an important greenhouse gas because it is such a potent heat absorber.
Methane accounts for about 20% of the heating effects by all of the greenhouse gases combined. Both natural and human sources supply methane to Earth’s atmosphere.
Major natural sources of methane include emissions from wetlands and oceans, and from the digestive processes of termites.

Green fuel

Green fuel, also known as biofuel, is a type of fuel distilled from plants and animal materials, believed by some to be more environmentally friendly than the widely-used fossil fuels that power most of the world.

Source: Economic Times

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