By Corinna Wu
Could the green scum that grows on the walls of a fish tank produce the fuel of the future? Some scientists think so.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2002/08/1579.jpg?resize=150%2C130&ssl=1)
They’ve found a way to coax green algae into producing significant amounts of hydrogen gas. In these researchers’ view, large pools of algae could generate clean-burning hydrogen fuel for cars and other applications.
As microscopic plants, algae use photosynthesis to create sugars from water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight. Algae also have the biochemical machinery to produce hydrogen, notes Tasios Melis of the University of California, Berkeley. Under some conditions—in the absence of oxygen, for example—algae strip hydrogen from some of their proteins. This process allows the cell to maintain its production of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, an energy molecule that powers many cell functions.