Correction to Microbial Electrosynthesis and Anaerobic Fermentation: An Economic Evaluation for Acetic Acid Production from CO₂ and CO

Bioelectrochemical systems and synthetic biology: more power, more products

“…Another MET that could be impacted by synthetic biology tools for molecule production is known as electrofermentation – the guided fermentation of waste or traditional feedstock using an electrode (Flynn et al ., ; Christodoulou and Velasquez‐Orta, ). Other than improvements to product formation, MES could be enhanced by engineering the pathways that electrons travel into cells and their energy‐coupling reactions (Tefft and TerAvest, ).…”

“…Although introduction of microorganisms does not necessarily improve the overall cost analysis of chemical electrosynthesis, it provides an opportunity to exploit microorganisms to introduce electrosynthesis into new product markets. Technoeconomic analysis of acetate production from MES has recently been performed (Christodoulou and Velasquez‐Orta, ), and it was found that, just as for MFCs, operating costs are the primary factor holding back this technology as costs remain high compared with conventional methods for acetate production (33% higher than the commercial acetic acid price in the UK), including methanol carbonylation and ethane direct oxidation, which are at least 1.8 times lower costs than the commercial price of acetate. Synthetic biology could help reduce these costs by converting CO 2 to higher value chemicals and potentially improving the biocatalyst itself to increase production rates and high reaction specificity which is not achievable using conventional metal and chemical catalysts.…”

Taking the technical microbiome into the next decade

“…A second option resides in the utilization of carbon dioxide from biogas or other point sources to produce carboxlyates through electrosynthesis (Nevin et al , ; Rabaey and Rozendal, ). The current lower production rates, compared to direct carboxylate production via fermentation, and subsequent high operational and capital cost, which are a factor of 5–10 higher than the actual value of, for example, acetate (Christodoulou and Velasquez‐Orta, ), do not yet enable economic application of electrosynthesis as such. As a final option, biogas can serve as a carbon and energy source to produce microbial protein as animal feed or even human food (Matassa et al , b; Pikaar et al , ).…”