英语科普小知识 利用大气中的CO2制造燃料.docVIP

Excess carbon dioxide in Earths atmosphere created by the widespread burning of fossil fuels is the major driving force of global climate change, and researchers the world over are looking for new ways to generate power that leaves a smaller carbon footprint. Now, researchers at the University of Georgia have found a way to transform the carbon dioxide trapped in the atmosphere into useful industrial products. Their discovery may soon lead to the creation of biofuels made directly from the carbon dioxide in the air that is responsible for trapping the suns rays and raising global temperatures. ? Basically, what we have done is create a microorganism that does with carbon dioxide exactly what plants do-absorb it and generate something useful, said Michael Adams, member of UGAs Bioenergy Systems Research Institute, Georgia Power professor of biotechnology and Distinguished Research Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. ? During the process of photosynthesis, plants use sunlight to transform water and carbon dioxide into sugars that the plants use for energy, much like humans burn calories from food. ? These sugars can be fermented into fuels like ethanol, but it has proven extraordinarily difficult to efficiently extract the sugars, which are locked away inside the plants complex cell walls. ? What this discovery means is that we can remove plants as the middleman, said Adams, who is co-author of the study detailing their results published March 25 in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We can take carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and turn it into useful products like fuels and chemicals without having to go through the inefficient process of growing plants and extracting sugars from biomass. ? The process is made possible by a unique microorganism called Pyrococcus furiosus, or rushing fireball, which thrives by feeding on carbohydrates in the super-heat