Mirai, one of the few cars xE0 & #; & # hydrogenated XE8; only, is manufactured & # XE9 e by Toyota.
Mirai, one of the few hydrogen cars is manufactured by Toyota. – Hiroto Sekiguchi / AP / Sipa

Christophe Quelais

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A new step was probably done in the way of reducing emissions of greenhouse . US scientists have managed to produce the hydrogen faster and less expensive way than conventional methods, has-been learned Monday. This breakthrough, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could help speed up the arrival of large scale vehicles to hydrogen (see box) , cheaper and do not produce carbon dioxide (CO2), according to experts.

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In practice, researchers at the Virginia Institute of Technology (Virginia Tech) have developed a biological process to produce the hydrogen rapidly with high yields from glucose and xylose, sugars that are found in abundance in the stalks, cobs and corn husks. Using a computer model, they were able to identify enzymes – molecule that speeds up chemical reactions of metabolism – which allowed us to obtain more hydrogen from biomass. Which tripled the rate of production of hydrogen compared to the rates obtained using standard concentrations, the researchers

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“This means that we have demonstrated the most important step towards an economy based on the hydrogen namely the production and distribution of the hydrogen Cheap green from local biomass, “said Percival Zhang, a professor in the Department of Biological Engineering at Virginia Tech systems.

The project was funded in part by Shell as part of the initiative “GameChanger” (“change the game”) and the US National Science Foundation.

Currently, one of the biggest obstacles to large-scale production of hydrogen is its high cost, because the process is based on a reaction with natural gas. Distribution for users of vehicles with fuel cells is another challenge.