Talk:Hydrogenase

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Can/is hydrogensae used as a catalyst in fuel cells? I've read an article in Tieteen Kuvalehti (check my talk topic here) that it is used in such a manner at least for research purposes. Khokkanen 21:01, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

A response three years latter is ridiculous but I'm sure others wonder about this. Practically speaking hydrogensae are still not an anode catalyst in any operational PEM cell. There are usually 1 or 2 academic papers a year in which someone does a "proof of concept" study to show that they could be an anode catalyst or more commonly to show them as a cathode in hydrogen production cell. In both cases the issues discussed below apply.

In practice the protein is to temperamental in terms of a limited range of stability to humidity, salt concentrations, pH, oxygen sensitivity, temperature, and they suffer a natural half-life. These issue make them impractical for industrial application on an electrode. The biological mode of action in which proteins are periodically consumed by the cell and regenerated doesn't work outside fermentation reactors so far. On an electrode this mode of action means constantly removing and applying the surface mechanically or some how convincing a unicellular organism to do it for you. If you have a unicellular organism do it than you completed a major challenge next you have to keep that finicky cell alive in the system. I hope that helps.

Also I was recently at a talk in which the speaker's group sequenced the contents of a termite's hind gut and identified a great number of hydrogensae enzymes. It is also known that the termite gut has as extremely high levels of hydrogen. Someone who knows more about biology and this subject might want to add this to the page. --OMCV (talk) 15:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)