Methane is the quiet villain that could drag us deeper into the climate crisis. It is 25 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.
Less than half of the natural gas can be converted into electrical power through burning.
In an effort to squeeze more electrons from every puff of methane, researchers in the Netherlands have explored a rather unconventional form of power station.
"This could be very useful for the energy sector," says Welte.
In the current biogas installations, methane is produced by microorganisms and subsequently burnt, which drives a turbine, thus generating power. The maximum capacity is less than half of the biogas that is converted into power. We want to see if we can do better using the organisms.
The focus of their investigation is a type of archaea that are known for their ability to break down methane in environments without oxygen.
This specific type of archaea, known as anaerobic methanotrophic (AN ME) archaea, use metal or metalloid outside of their cells or even donate them to other species in their environment to manage this metabolic trick.
The Methanoperedens were found to oxidize methane with a little help from nitrates, making them right at home in the wet bogs of the Netherland.
Attempts to pull electrons from this process have resulted in tiny voltages being produced, without any clear confirmation on which processes might be behind the conversion.
If these archaea are to ever show promise as methane-gobbling power cells, they need to produce a current in a clear, unambiguous fashion.
To make matters harder, Methanoperedens is not a microbe that can be easily cultivated.
Welte and her colleagues gathered a sample of microbes that were dominated by methane-slurping archaea and grew them in an oxygen-lacking environment where methane was the only electron donor.
Near this colony, they placed a metal anode set at zero voltage, which created an electrochemical cell primed to generate a current.
Heleen Ouboter, a microbiologist from the University of Radboud, says that they created a battery with two terminals, one of which was a biological terminal and the other a chemical terminal.
We grow thebacteria on one of the electrodes, to which thebacteria give electrons from the conversion of methane.
After analyzing the conversion of methane to carbon dioxide and measuring the currents that spiked as high as 274 MIPs per square centimeter, the team deduced a little over a third of the current could be attributed to the breaking down of methane.
31 percent of the methane was converted into electrical power, making it comparable to some power stations.
The creation of highly efficient living batteries that run on biogas, wringing more spark from every bit of gas and reducing the need for piping methane over long distances could be achieved by tinkering more with the process. Some methane power plants barely manage their efficiency.
We should find ways to stop using fossil fuels.
Learning more about how this greenhouse gas breaks down in our environment can be beneficial.
This research was published in a journal.
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