Energy potential, biomass abundance

Waste Biomass Resource Abundance, Energy Potential, and Availability... 

The principal controls on the microbial reaction rate in our example, then, are biomass and thermodynamic drive (Fig. 33.2). Initially, in the presence of abundant lactate and arsenate, the rate is controlled by the size of the microbial population available to catalyze lactate oxidation. As the population increases, so does reaction rate. Later, as reactants are consumed and products accumulate, the reaction approaches the point at which the energy liberated by its progress is balanced by that needed in the cell to synthesize ATR Reaction rate is governed now by the energy available to drive forward the cellular metabolism, this energy represented by the thermodynamic potential factor Ft over the course of the experiment, the kinetic factors Fd and Fa play minor roles. 

Photocatalytic conversion uses sunlight to convert biomass feedstocks into H2 or liquid fuels, and is usually performed at room temperature. The cost could be potentially lower than other methods, since abundant sunlight is used as an energy source for the eonversion. However, the photocatalytic conversion efficiency from biomass to H2 is still low (1%). New photocatalysts need to be developed to improve the efficiency ... 

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