New Highly Efficient Hydrogen-making Process Developed to Fuel Car Engines

A new process that is said to be highly efficient in producing hydrogen (from plant sugars) has been developed to cheaply power vehicles with a hydrogen fuel cell. The new process was presented here in New Orleans at the 2008 National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

The study titled "Complete conversion of carbohydrate and water to hydrogen and carbohydrate dioxide by a synthetic enzymatic pathway" was presented by Dr. Percival Zhang, lead researcher from the Virginia Tech University. Dr. Zhang is a biochemical engineer.

Assistants to this presentation were very excited about the new process to produce much needed alternative fuel hydrogen to power up car's engines. The new process is said to be highly efficient, cheap, could be widely available, and do not leave any contaminants on the environment.

The new process is called "synthetic biology." It is basically a replication of what nature does on the lab. The basis of the new process is the complete conversion of carbohydrate and water to hydrogen. This is done efficiently, much more efficient than current hydrogen-producing methods.

Dr. Zhang said here that the new process is basically taking some starch and water and, under controlled conditions, add some 13 biologically active compounds (enzymes) that completely degrade the starch to hydrogen. The process is so efficient, according to the presenter that leaves practically no contaminants.

Percival emphasized through his presentation that they have found the most promising hydrogen-producing system to date from plant sugars (starches, actually).

The cocktail of enzymes was not disclosed (we supposed it will be patented to make some money from it) but we can speculate that amylases (enzymes that brake starch to sugars), fermentation enzymes (that degrade sugars) into carbon dioxide and hydrogen (with no carbon monoxide production).