In the beginning of October 2018, researchers from the University of California – Berkeley published a paper in Nature Nanotechnology that explains how a new bacterium can produce fuels through artificial photosynthesis upon being fed gold. The formerly undiscovered bacterium, Moorella thermoacetica, allows for the development of photosynthetic biohybrid systems (PBS), linking inorganic light with preassembled biosynthetic pathways. The addition of gold nanoclusters, AuNCs, is used to circumvent electron transfer for existing PBSs through its addition to M. thermoacetica, which is a non-photosynthetic bacterium. “Translocation of these AuNCs into the bacteria enables photosynthesis of acetic acid from CO2 […] realizing CO2 fixation continuously over several days,” which leads to an accelerated production of biofuels.
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