Another step towards the hydrogen highway

A new Potential Biohybrid Catalyst for Hydrogen Production and Use Created

Green Car Congress is reporting that "Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado are reporting the first successful electrical connection between hydrogenase enzymes and carbon nanotubes."

While hydrogenases enzymes have long shown promise as catalysts for hydrogen production they have not been able to form stable, strong electrical connections for use in an electrical device, however, some anaerobic bacterium have shown promise helping hydrogenases to remain catalytically active.

By carefully designed synthesis, it should be possible to tune the catalytic biohybrids for use as electrochemical probes for in vivo detection of hydrogenase activities. More importantly, this work offers the first step toward the construction of functional hydrogenase/SWNT hybrids for application in a variety of hydrogen production and fuel cell technologies.