by Blaine Friedlander (Cornell University/Science Daily) By borrowing nature’s blueprints for photosynthesis, bioengineers have found a way to efficiently absorb and store large-scale, low-cost renewable energy from the sun – while sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide to use later as a biofuel.
By borrowing nature’s blueprints for photosynthesis, Cornell University bioengineers have found a way to efficiently absorb and store large-scale, low-cost renewable energy from the sun — while sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide to use later as a biofuel.
The key: Let bioengineered microbes do all the work.
Buz Barstow, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University, and doctoral candidate Farshid Salimijazi have assembled theoretical solutions and models that calculate efficiency in microbes, which could take in electricity and store carbon dioxide at least five times more efficiently than photosynthesis, the process by which plants turn sunlight into chemical energy.