Enzyme system for the hydrogen industry

An enzyme could make a dream come true for the energy industry: It can efficiently produce hydrogen using electricity and can also generate electricity from hydrogen. The enzyme is protected by embedding it in a polymer. An international research team with significant participation of scientists from Technical University of Munich (TUM) has presented the system in the renowned science journal Nature Catalysis.

Fuel cells turn hydrogen into electricity, while electrolysers use electricity to split water to produce hydrogen. Both need the rare and thus expensive precious metal platinum as a catalyst. Nature has created a different solution: Enzymes, referred to as hydrogenases. They catalyze the conversion of hydrogen very quickly and almost without energy loss.

However, in the past these biocatalysts were not considered suitable for industrial use because of their high sensitivity to oxygen. Now a research team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Marseille and the Max-Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion has succeeded in embedding the sensitive enzymes in a protective polymer in a way that makes them viable for use in technical hydrogen conversion.

Furthermore, the findings can also be transferred to other highly-active but sensitive catalysts for energy conversion and electrosynthesis. Direct objectives here are primarily carbon dioxide-reducing enzymes that can use electricity to produce liquid fuels or intermediate products from carbon dioxide.