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Metagenomics Meets Electrochemistry: Utilizing the Huge Catalytic Potential From the Uncultured Microbial Majority for Energy-Storage.

ABSTRACT: Hydrogen can in the future serve as an advantageous carrier of renewable energy if its production via water electrolysis and utilization in fuel cells are realized with high energy efficiency and non-precious electrocatalysts. In an unprecedented novel combination of structured electrodes with hydrogen converting enzymes from the uncultured and thus largely inaccessible microbial majority (>99%) we address this challenge. The geometrically defined electrodes with large specific surface area allow for low overpotentials and high energy efficiencies to be achieved. Enzymatic hydrogen evolution electrocatalysts are used as alternatives to noble metals. The enzymes are harnessed from the environmental microbial DNA (metagenomes) of hydrothermal vents exhibiting dynamic hydrogen and oxygen concentrations and are recovered via a recently developed novel activity-based screening tool. The screen enables us to target currently unrecognized hydrogenase enzymes from metagenomes via direct expression in a surrogate host microorganism. This circumvents the need for cultivation of the source organisms, the primary bottleneck when harnessing enzymes from microbes. One hydrogen converting metagenome-derived enzyme exhibited high activity and unusually high stability when dispersed on a TiO2-coated polyacrylonitrile fiber electrode. Our results highlight the tremendous potential of enzymes derived from uncultured microorganisms for applications in energy conversion and storage technologies.

SUBMITTER: Adam N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7287016 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Metagenomics Meets Electrochemistry: Utilizing the Huge Catalytic Potential From the Uncultured Microbial Majority for Energy-Storage.

Adam Nicole N Schlicht Stefanie S Han Yuchen Y Bechelany Mikhael M Bachmann Julien J Perner Mirjam M

Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology 20200604

Hydrogen can in the future serve as an advantageous carrier of renewable energy if its production via water electrolysis and utilization in fuel cells are realized with high energy efficiency and non-precious electrocatalysts. In an unprecedented novel combination of structured electrodes with hydrogen converting enzymes from the uncultured and thus largely inaccessible microbial majority (>99%) we address this challenge. The geometrically defined electrodes with large specific surface area allo ...[more]

PMID: 32582677

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Project description:We introduce a novel chemical preintercalation based synthesis technique based on hydrogen peroxide induced sol-gel process to obtain alkali ion containing ternary layered titanates (MTO, where M = Li, Na, K). Synthesis parameters leading to the formation of single-phase materials with homogeneous elemental distribution are reported for each of the preintercalated ion. Our analyses indicate that the interlayer spacing in the structure of the layered titanates increases with the increase of the radius of the hydrated preintercalated ion. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy imaging revealed morphological diversity: the LTO phase crystallized as nanoplates assembled in "peony-like" spherical agglomerates while NTO and KTO particles exhibited one-dimensional nanobelt or wire-like morphology, with the KTO nanobelts being shorter and more aggregated than the NTO nanobelts. Structural refinement corroborated by electron diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy revealed that the structure of the LTO phase is built by stacking Ti-O layers containing a single straight layer of connected TiO6 octahedra. The layers in NTO and KTO structures form differently and consist of double Ti-O layers with ragged arrangement of units built by TiO6 octahedra with two titanium rows. The NTO electrodes exhibited the highest electrochemical performance in cells with aqueous 1 M Na2SO4 electrolyte, followed by the KTO electrodes and then LTO electrodes, and this trend is maintained at various scan rates. The established relationships between the structure and electrochemical performance reveal that, in addition to interlayer distance and chemistry of the interlayer region, the structure of the layers can play an important role in charge storage properties of layered oxide electrodes. The double Ti-O layers in the structure of NTO and KTO phases provide a larger number of redox centers which could contribute to the superior electrochemical performance as compared to the LTO electrodes. Our findings indicate that layered materials containing double transition metal oxide layers are promising candidates for exfoliation and assembly with electronically conductive layers with the aim to create 2D heterostructures with high electrochemical performance.

Dataset Information

Metagenomics Meets Electrochemistry: Utilizing the Huge Catalytic Potential From the Uncultured Microbial Majority for Energy-Storage.

Publications

Metagenomics Meets Electrochemistry: Utilizing the Huge Catalytic Potential From the Uncultured Microbial Majority for Energy-Storage.

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