Chalmydomonas Rheinhardtii to hydrogen? Other uses?

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Fran - 20 Jun 2007 14:37 GMT

Does anyone have up to date info on chlamydomonas rheinhardtii?

Apparently, at one point, it was touted as a possible source of
hydrogen from biomass -- starvation of nitrogen apparently spurred
changes in hydrogenase metaboilism.

Any data on reporductive yield, lipid content, constraints, volume of
hydrogen, life cycle?

Fran

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Bob - 21 Jun 2007 04:08 GMT

>Does anyone have up to date info on chlamydomonas rheinhardtii?
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>Any data on reporductive yield, lipid content, constraints, volume of
>hydrogen, life cycle?

It would be hard to get an algal system to give a good volumetric
productivity, though people are trying. (Light penetration is poor.)
Anyway, as people come to their senses about the impracticality of
hydrogen, interest is waning.

If you are curious, look up the work of Melis (at UC Berkeley). And
you might look around the Chlamy web site, http://www.chlamy.org. If
you see anything encouraging, please update us.

bob

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Fran - 21 Jun 2007 04:41 GMT

> >Does anyone have up to date info on chlamydomonas rheinhardtii?
>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> It would be hard to get an algal system to give a good volumetric
> productivity, though people are trying. (Light penetration is poor.)

Apparently Jim Sears (ex of Solix) had an idea based on rollers
disturbing and agitating long lines of polymer bags golding the algae.

One could also use agitators inside the tanks or ponds, or perhaps
disturb the fluid medium in the course of pumping in whatever gases
were needed to supply the alga.

> Anyway, as people come to their senses about the impracticality of
> hydrogen, interest is waning.

For mine, hydrogen is one of those things that would be brilliant if
you could overcome the technical problems and major energy inputs to
get it and use it. If there were a low energy way to produce it in
volume more or less on demand, and you therefore didn't need
substantial storage, it could be a wonderful energy carrier. Getting
it from high yield biomass would be very advantageous, especially if
the biomass could then be dried and burned or converted to liquid
fuels once the hydrogen had been captured.

You might well get very close to a closed loop energy system, at least
as far as GHGs were concerned.

> If you are curious, look up the work of Melis (at UC Berkeley). And
> you might look around the Chlamy web site,http://www.chlamy.org. If
> you see anything encouraging, please update us.
>
> bob

I will.

Fran

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Joachim Pimiskern - 21 Jun 2007 08:57 GMT

"Fran" <Fran.Beta@gmail.com> schrieb:

> Does anyone have up to date info on chlamydomonas rheinhardtii?

A collection of links:
http://www.augos.com/temp/Temp_Chlamydomonas.html

Regards,
Joachim

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Natural Science Forum / Biology / Microbiology / June 2007

Chalmydomonas Rheinhardtii to hydrogen? Other uses?