Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 12:03:50 PM - by Danny Vo

Arizona State University said yesterday that the Department of Energy is funding its research in batteries and solar energy - making ASU the only university to receive two DOE research grants.

According to student newspaper The Daily Press, the solar project will examine the effect of solar energy on cyanobacteria - bacteria that obtain energy through photosynthesis. The bacteria take in sunlight and carbon dioxide and create energy in the form of fatty acids.

ASU will try to extract the fatty acids from cyanobacteria for use as a fuel source - an unconventional way of getting energy from the sun.

Cyanobacteria are similar to algae. Algae are more closely related to plants, though, because they conduct photosynthesis in structures called chloroplasts; cyanobacteria conduct photosynthesis on thylakoid membranes.

There has been hope in the scientific community that algae can be used as a fuel source in the future. Algal fuel requires algae to be harvested, though. In ASU's research, says professor Willem Vermaas in the Daily Press, "we don’t need to harvest a lot of cells." Thus, the solar energy study requires relatively little biomass to produce fuel.