Greenhouse gas production from nitrogen fertilisers

The associated release of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide from agricultural lands is a cause of great concern. It is 300-times more potent than carbon dioxide and produced in association with application of fertiliser to increasing crop yield. It has been argued that its production in association with cropping for biofuels could negate the benefit of producing the biofuel. We are studying the mechanism by which microbes produce and consume this greenhouse gas and the influence that a range of environmental variables has on this process.

Biofuel production

Microbes can produce a range of biofuels from low value substrates as a consequence of their metabolic diversity. We study this metabolic diversity focusing particular on novel enzymes for sugar metabolism in soil bacteria and exploring how complex sugar mixtures can be most efficiently converted into alcohols.

The molecular mechanism of bioelectricity generation

In a microbial fuel cell bacteria extract electrons from organic substrates and pass them to electrodes such that an electrical current is produced. In many prototype cells the electrons pass via soluble artificial electron carrier mediators that are both costly and often toxic. The prospect then of using bacteria that can pass electrons directly to electrode surfaces by virtue of possessing the extracellular electron transport proteins is an attractive one. We study the synthesis and activity of extracellular electron transport and the mechanism by which they transfer electrons to different electrode surfaces.