Tag : Bioplastic

New York: Scientists have created microbe-semiconductor biohybrids that merge the biosynthetic power of living systems with the ability of semiconductors to harvest light. The study was published in the journal, 'Nature Chemistry'. These microorganisms use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into value-added chemical products, such as bioplastics and biofuels. But how that energy transport occurs in such a tiny, complex system, and whether the process can be improved, is still unclear. Researchers have developed a multimodal platform to image these biohybrids with single-cell resolution, to better understand how they function and how they can be optimized for more efficient energy conversion. The project was led by Peng Chen, professor of chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences. The effort is an offshoot of a larger collaboration – with Tobias Hanrath, professor at the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in Cornell Engineering, and Buz Barstow, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences – that was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to explore microscopic imaging of microbes as a way to advance bioenergy research. Biohybrid research has typically been conducted with bacteria in bulk – essentially a large amount of cells in a bucket, Peng said – emphasizing the overall yield of the value-added chemicals and the collective behaviors of the cells, rather than the underlying mechanism that enables the complex chemical transformation. “Biology is very heterogeneous. The individual cells are very different. Now, in order to interrogate it better, you really need to measure it at a single-cell level,” Chen said. “This is where we come in. ...