11

I'm trying to construct an anaerobic kitchen-waste digester at home.

The major output from the digester is methane - with a significant component of carbon dioxide. To scrub/reduce the CO2 I was thinking of passing the methane through a freshwater container charged with algae ... then it occurred to me to also think of introducing some bioluminescent algae to drive the photosynthesis & absorb some of the oxygen released by the other algae. Understandably this would be an unbalanced system.

But ... can bioluminescence drive photosynthesis?

Everyone
  • 3,863
  • 1
  • 26
  • 42
  • 1
    Sounds like an interesting project. But why not just expose the algae to sunlight? – Poshpaws Oct 31 '12 at 10:32
  • Also, what are you going to do with the methane? – Poshpaws Oct 31 '12 at 10:35
  • 1
    Don't laugh. I forgot why I didn't want to expose the algae to sunlight ... To answer the second question - burn it! – Everyone Oct 31 '12 at 16:28
  • 1
    This mainly depends on three things: The emission wavelength of the bioluminescence, the intensity of the bioluminescence and the optimum wavelength of the photosynthesis. I don't have actual numbers, but my educated guess is that the bioluminescence, even if the wavelengths fit, is way to weak to show an effect. – Eekhoorn Oct 31 '12 at 17:08
  • this is like asking if opening a refrigerator in the kitchen can cool the kitchen. it can, but only if you spend a lot of energy. – shigeta Oct 31 '12 at 21:49
  • This would be a complex system to setup and would not run bet efficiently. Maintaining luciferin production would be problematic. Might be better to use a melatonin-producing microbe as a photon acceptor. –  Nov 01 '12 at 01:26
  • @shigeta - No, opening a refrigerator in the kitchen can only warm the kitchen. The more energy you put in, the warmer it will get. You can cool the kitchen if you put the refrigerator half in the kitchen and half in some other room (or outside). – Rex Kerr Nov 01 '12 at 12:08
  • @RexKerr that was more or less my point. the open freezer is a freshman thermodynamics talking point. For the same reasons, you could never create a closed bioluminesence photosynthesis cycle. – shigeta Nov 01 '12 at 16:43
  • @shigeta - Refrigerators are reasonably efficient air conditioners. The key is not how much energy you expend, it's the configuration of the heat cycle (i.e. cooling coils and open door not in the same room if you want to reduce the mean temperature in one room). It's really not analogous at all--here the issue is that you need the methane processed, and providing light input (and methane as the carbon source) is one way to accomplish it. – Rex Kerr Nov 01 '12 at 16:50
  • @shigeta: (+: I did expect it to be unbalanced. Off-topic, the depth of these inter/co-dependent networks in nature make one revere that nature developed so. Imagine the number of broken branches of evolution & mutation that must have occurred to develop to our present day .... – Everyone Nov 01 '12 at 17:14

2 Answers2

5

Yes and no. Yes as in the energetics do work out and you will be going down a small but non-trivial driving force as long as you continue to provide the luciferin to the algae.

However, the wavelengths of light by which photosynthesis absorbs its energy are well defined and narrow. As a result, light sources for photosynthetic organisms have to be fairly strong and bright to cover the whole spectrum to provide the necessary light. As a result, your bioluminescent algae will also have to emit light at the desired wavelength to achieve a high photochemical efficiency and provide light to both Photosystem II and Photosystem I which have different wavelength requirements.

enter image description here
(source: gsu.edu)

Glorfindel
  • 579
  • 2
  • 8
  • 18
bobthejoe
  • 7,867
  • 7
  • 43
  • 73
  • 3
    "Marine species tend to emit light of wavelength between 440 and 479 nm (bluish), which is the range of greatest optical transparency of seawater." - http://www.quantum-immortal.net/physics/biolum.php

    So it's in the correct wavelength range, but I'm with shigeta - it's not going all that efficient (unless, of course, there's the possibility for breeding brighter algae).

     – MCM Oct 31 '12 at 22:39
1

Curiously enough, this was the subject of a paper in 2013. The authors claimed to have driven photosynthesis by submerging some dark-adapted leaves into a solution containing a mixture of luminol, hydrogen peroxide and horseradish peroxidase (HRP).

They measure the levels of starch on the leaves produced in three different solution concentrations and bioluminescence irradiance levels.

As the leaves were severed from the plant I do not see much of a future in submerging leaves or an entire plant in this solution but it would be interesting see how algae would react. Also, I am very curious the luminol could potentially be injected in the plant, although this might be far fetched.

The link to the paper below:

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2013/cc/c3cc45264f#!divAbstract

Mayke Santos
  • 39
  • 5