Bacteria with a special pigments can absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide. The discovery may lead to environmentally friendly energy generation in the future.
There are researchers at Linnaeus University and Spain who have made the findings, recently published in the scientific journal PNAS.
– It has long been known that bacteria in the oceans act as decomposers, like fungi and other microorganisms in the soil. But, thanks to the light-sensitive pigment proteorodopsin also effectively capture carbon dioxide is a novelty, says Jarone Pinhassi, associate professor of marine microbiology at Linnaeus University, in a press release.
There are about a billion bacteria per liter of seawater. At sea level, approximately half of these bacteria pigment proteorodopsin.
The pigment was discovered in 2000 and Jarone Pinhassi and his research team have previously found that bacteria with this pigment grow better in the light than in the dark and they also survive starvation periods in better light.
– An attractive idea is that exploit marine bacteria’s ability to conserve sunlight and carbon dioxide for biotechnological applications. To ultimately utilize the knowledge of bacterial carbon fixation and metabolism in the context of the development of clean and renewable energy would be fascinating, says Jarone Pinhassi.
Research results show that bacteria with proteorodopsin growing in light can fix large amounts of carbon dioxide. Up to 30 percent of the cellular material in these bacteria come from carbon dioxide.
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