Bacteria Making Nanowires

What if you can ask bacteria to create nano-wires and they comply to our request? Scientists say that this is possible. They say that a wide variety of bacteria can be persuaded to produce wire-like appendages that conduct electricity could prove vital to the development of more efficient biological fuel cells.

Scientists are investigating the bacteria that use sugars and sewage as fuel are being investigated as a pollution-free source of electricity. These bacteria feed by plucking electrons from atoms in their fuel and dumping them onto the oxygen or metal atoms in the mixture. The transfer of the electrons creates an electri current, and connecting the bacteria to an electrode in a microbial fuel cell will generate electricity, eventhough not necessarily very efficiently.

A species of bacterium called Geobacter sulfurreducens, which dumps electrons onto metal, has previously been persuaded to grow nanowires to make contact with distant atoms. A deficit of metal atoms in the close vicinity of the bacteria can cause a bottleneck, so the proliferation of nanowires allows the bacteria to consume more fuel, potentially boosting the current produced by a microbial fuel cell.

Now a study by Yuri Gorby of Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Washington State, US, and his colleagues reveals that several other kinds of bacteria produce similar nanowires.



Posted by: John    Source