Engineered bacteria produce chemicals with negative carbon emissions

Negative emissions have been achieved by the modification ofbacteria to produce chemicals from carbon dioxide in the air.

Environment 21 February 2022

By Chen Ly.

A carbon-negative way of manufacturing industrial chemicals could be offered by the use ofbacteria engineered to turn carbon dioxide into compounds.

Michael K and his colleagues searched through strains of the Clostridium autoethanogenum to find the enzymes that would allow the microbes to create acetone, which is used to make paint and nail polish remover. They combined the genes for the organisms. They repeated the process for isopropanol.

The process of making chemicals can be similar to making beer.

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After scaling up the initial experiments by a factor of 60, the team found that the process locks in 1.78 kilograms of carbon per kilogram of acetone produced and 1.17 kilograms of isopropanol. Fossil fuels are used to make these chemicals, which emit 2.55 kilogram and 1.85 kilogram of carbon dioxide per kilogram of acetone and isopropanol respectively.

If this method were to be broadly adopted, it would result in a 160 per cent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. Waste gas from other industrial processes could be used to make the technique more sustainable.

Michael Jewett is a member of the team at the University of Illinois.

The approach we've developed provides the blueprints for future development and will accelerate development of other chemicals that can be produced in a similar carbon-negative way.

Nature Biotechnology is a journal.

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