Bio-electrorecycling of carbon dioxide into bioplastics

Abstract

The rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the accumulation of non-biodegradable plastics in the environment is leading to an environmental crisis.

Monitoring microbial communities’ dynamics during the start-up of microbial fuel cells by high-throughput screening techniques

“…Microbial Electrochemical Technologies (METs) promise the prospect of producing energy or bio-based compounds from bio-wastes [ 1 , 2 ]. METs share the principle of microbial catalyzed anodic substrate oxidation and can be addressed to various applications such as: electricity production (microbial fuel cells; MFCs) (Liu et al, 2014; [ 3 ]), hydrogen production (microbial electrolysis cells, MEC) [ 4 ], bioremediation (option for nitrate removal operating either in MFC or in MEC mode) [ 5 ] or bio-electro synthesis (reduction of CO 2 in high value products) [ 6 , 2 , 7 ].…”

Thermophilic bio-electro CO2 recycling into organic compounds

“…A different study for the production of bioplastics obtained a CCE of 73%, in which 0.41 kg of carbon in the form of PHA were generated for every kg of applied carbon as CO 2 . 26 The values of the present work are lower, but it must be considered that CO 2 was less available, since the solubility of gases diminishes with increasing temperature. However, with the given data of other thermophilic studies, they cannot be compared to similar systems catalysing comparable end-products.…”

Conductive Magnetite Nanoparticles Enhance the Microbial Electrosynthesis of Acetate from CO2 while Diverting Electrons away from Methanogenesis

“…Despite these interesting findings, the actual mechanisms governing the formation of such metabolites remains largely unknown, as well as the practical strategies to be employed in order to manipulate and steer the distribution of CO 2 reduction products during MES operation, particularly when mixed microbial cultures are employed as catalysts. As an example, microbial electrosynthesis of butyrate from CO 2 was suggested to proceed either directly via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway coupled to Acetyl-CoA reduction or via so-called reverse β-oxidation (chain elongation) pathway from condensation of acetate and ethanol [26,31]. Key operational parameters, which have been found to control the underlying pathway of butyric acid production, include the microbial culture composition, pH, concentration of volatile fatty acids, and hydrogen partial pressure.…”