Researchers in Edinburgh have developed a way to produce hydrogen using E. coli bacteria fed on waste bread. This process targets industrial hydrogenation, the chemistry used to create synthetic rubber, foams, and lubricants for the automotive industry, which currently releases 920 million tons of CO2 annually. By binding a palladium catalyst to the bacterial cell membrane, the team achieved a reaction that could potentially result in negative carbon emissions. While commercial scaling is estimated to be ten to fifteen years away, the method turns food waste into a feedstock for essential industrial chemicals.
