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Nature Points the way to a sustainable hydrogen economy

February 10, 2005

"This is an exciting early step in developing a sustainable system for producing electricity from hydrogen" said Professor Chris Pickett (Associate Head of the Biological Chemistry Department at JIC). "In Nature iron-sulphur enzymes catalyse a range of important chemical reactions that industry can only do by using precious metal catalysts and/or high temperatures and pressures. Based on Nature's blueprint we are a step closer to building an iron-sulfur catalyst for reactions fundamental to a sustainable hydrogen economy".

As a blueprint for their syntheses the JIC team used the known molecular structures of the catalytic centre - 'the H-cluster'- found in the iron-only hydrogenase enzyme from two bacteria (Desulfovibrio desulfuricans and Clostridium pasteurianum). Hydrogenases catalyse interconversion of protons, electrons and hydrogen at extraordinary high rates. Their colleagues in Italy and the US [3] used state-of-the-art computational and spectroscopic techniques to probe the properties of the artificial H-cluster. The synthetic cluster was found to catalyse the reduction of protons to hydrogen albeit with poor energy efficiency. Nevertheless, the researchers believe their discovery should provide a lead to new materials that could eventually replace platinum.





John Innes Centre



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