New Method of Splitting Water Uses Viruses

A group of investigators from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announces the development of a new method of breaking down water, a critical stage required for turning the chemical into hydrogen fuel. The process is similar to photosynthesis, the technique plants use to break down sunlight and nutrients in the soil in energy and oxygen, in the presence of carbon dioxide. But the MIT group kept things interesting by using an engineered virus of their own doing.

The microorganism was made to act like a biological scaffold, on which investigators agglomerated a number of nanoscale structures. These components were required so that the entire system became capable of splitting down water molecules into their constituents, hydrogen and oxygen. The research was led by the MIT Germeshausen professor of materials science, engineering and biological engineering, Angela Belcher. Details of the work appear in the April 11 issue of the esteemed scientific publication Nature Nanotechnology.

The thing that sets the new work apart from others like it is the fact that the team developed a method of using sunlight to power the conversion reaction directly, without using intermediary steps. Previously, devices that broke down water tended to use electricity collected from solar panel, or other renewable sources, but the methods on which they relied were not very efficient in terms of overall conversion. Splitting water is fundamental for hydrogen fuel production. The chemical is synthesized, stored in tanks, and then used to power up vehicles directly.

“We use components people have used before, but we use biology to organize them for us, so you get better efficiency,” says Belcher of her team's work. The basis of the new approach is the bacterial virus M13, which is very common, and also harmless. At first, the team's accomplishments were stifled by the fact that the viruses tended to clump together after a while, diminishing their efficiency as a light intake system. The problem was circumvented when the group encapsulated the biological parts of their system in a microgel matrix, which helped maintain the ordered arrangement of the microorganisms.