Microbial conversion of waste gases into single-cell protein
Surbhi Jain A B * , James Heffernan B C , Jitendra Joshi B , Thomas Watts A , Esteban Marcellin B C * and Chris Greening A B *A Department of Microbiology, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University, Clayton, Vic., Australia.
B ARC Research Hub for Carbon Utilisation and Recycling, Monash University, Clayton, Vic., Australia.
C Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia.
Dr Surbhi Jain is a postdoctoral fellow at Monash University in the laboratory of Prof. Chris Greening. Her major interest includes physiology and genetic engineering of aerobic bacteria for conversion of greenhouse gases into valuable products. |
James Heffernan is a research officer at University of Queensland in the laboratory of Dr Esteban Marcellin. His major focus is scalable biological conversion of greenhouse gases into products by applying systems biology to gas fermentation technology. |
Dr Jitendra Joshi is the Chief Technologist for New Energy at Woodside Energy. His major interests include formulation of strategy for converting CO2 to value-added products, and integrating renewables in carbon transformation and hydrogen generation. |
Dr Thomas Watts is a postdoctoral fellow and team leader at Monash University in the laboratory of Professor Chris Greening. His major interest is the molecular biology of clostridia and mycobacteria. |
Dr Esteban Marcellin is an Associate Professor at University of Queensland. His interests include integrated systems and synthetic biology platforms to expand the product spectrum of greenhouse gas converting microbes. |
Prof. Chris Greening leads the One Health Microbiology Group at Monash University. His research investigates the biochemistry, physiology, ecology, biogeochemistry and applications of microbial gas metabolism. |
Microbiology Australia 44(1) 27-30 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA23007
Submitted: 10 January 2023 Accepted: 16 February 2023 Published: 9 March 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the ASM. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Climate change and food security are two of our most significant global challenges of our time. Conventional approaches for food production not only produce greenhouse gases but also require extensive land and water resources. An alternative is to use gas fermentation to convert greenhouse gases as feedstocks into microbial protein-rich biomass (single-cell protein). Aerobic methanotrophic (methane-oxidising) and hydrogenotrophic (hydrogen-oxidising) bacteria, which produce biomass using gases as their energy and carbon sources, are ideal candidates for single-cell protein production. However, multiple innovations are required for single-cell protein production to be economical and sustainable. Although current technologies rely on conversion of purified single gaseous substrates, the potential to directly use mixed gas streams from point sources remains reasonably unexplored. In addition, there is much potential to increase nutritional and commercial value of single-cell protein through synthetic biology. In this perspective, we discuss the principles, approaches, and outlook for gas fermentation technologies aiming to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance food security.
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