Gas fermentation of C1 feedstocks: commercialization status and future prospects

Abstract

The increasing emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and carbon oxide (collectively referred as C1 compounds) are likely to configure a major contribution to global warming and other environmental issues. The implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is considered a crucial strategy to prevent global warming, but the overall costs of currently available CCS technologies are still prohibitive for its large‐scale deployment. Using microorganisms capable of assimilating C1 compounds for producing value‐added products could be an important driver for mitigating emissions and minimizing their deleterious consequences, while simultaneously deriving additional economic benefits from these compounds. This review summarizes the main microorganisms and metabolic routes being investigated, with special focus on both the products targeted and the current industrial initiatives. There are a number of companies investing in these routes and in some instances commercial deployment was identified. Despite the variety of commercially‐appealing products, genetic manipulation of microorganisms to maximize yields and the design of technologies capable of efficiently using the gaseous feedstocks are major challenges yet to be overcome to fully unlock the potential of C1 microbiological routes. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Beyond ethanol, sugar, and electricity: a critical review of product diversification in Brazilian sugarcane mills

“…The economic feasibility of industrial systems to produce butanol, either for the chemical or the biofuel market, also requires the optimization of virtually all process steps, especially those associated with butanol synthesis. A third prospect includes the fermentation of C1 compounds (including CO 2 ) by either engineered or wild strains (of yeast or bacteria) into advanced biofuels or bioproducts …”

“…A third prospect includes the fermentation of C1 compounds (including CO 2 ) by either engineered or wild strains (of yeast or bacteria) into advanced biofuels or bioproducts. 56 The process alternatives presented hereafter are either available in the market or could be easily adapted to use the outputs of a sugarcane mill, which would therefore not require a considerable technological leap for deployment. The main technologies identified, with short to medium time-to-market periods either due to a smaller deployment scale or readiness level, are further discussed below.…”

Gas Fermentation Expands the Scope of a Process Network for Material Conversion

“…On a noncommercial level, the use of other gasified waste streams in LGS fermentation has already been reported, including sewage sludge [10], landfills [11], and lignocellulosic biomass [12,13]. At present, there are numerous of published studies describing various details of syngas fermentation and many biological and technical aspects have been summarized in several reviews [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

Production of biopolymer precursors beta-alanine and L-lactic acid from CO2with metabolically versatileRhodococcus opacusDSM 43205

“…In contrast, the aerobic lithoautotrophic bacteria can couple the oxidation of H 2 to the electron transfer chain with O 2 as the final electron acceptor for the respirative ATP generation. Therefore, the aerobic lithoautotrophic bacteria can generate more energy to produce biomass and complex natural products such as poly-hydroxyalkanoates (PHA) (Teixeira et al 2018; Brigham 2019).…”