I was recently reading about failures and successes in experiments for growing algae, using the flue gasses from fossil fuel power plants.

Some of those articles noted that those flue gasses contain significant amounts of sulphur dioxide, and that without filtering, a pond of algae fed that flue gas would die off in about a day, due to the acidity.

What about finding a photosynthetic organism which can survive in such acid conditions, so that no filtering is necessary?

I know that there do exist acid loving bacteria, called acidophiles, and I know that some of them perform photosynthesis.

Presumably, some such organism could be cultured in quantity, it could be made into a biofuel.
-- goldbb, Aug 05 2009

What about these critters make them good biofuel?How is this better than growing a pond of algae for biofuel, or growing an x of y for biofuel?
-- bungston, Aug 06 2009


The advantage over algae is that you get to skip a (potentially costly) step ... that of removing sulfur from the gas.

Another possible advantage... if you're considering growing them in open ponds, you'll have fewer worries about invasive wild species, since there are relatively few microorganisms which can survive in acidic environments.
-- goldbb, Aug 06 2009



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