Gas fermentation for microbial sustainable aviation fuel production
Karen Rodriguez A , Marcelo Pedroso B , Audrey Harris C , Shivani Garg C , Damian Hine D , Michael Köpke C , Gerhard Schenk B and Esteban Marcellin A *A Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, Australia.
B School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, Australia.
C LanzaTech Inc., Skokie, IL, USA.
D Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, Australia.
Karen Rodriguez is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Nanotechnology and Bioengineering, The University of Queensland. In collaboration with Schenk’s group (The University of Queensland) and Lanzatech, she aims to use the CO/CO2 + H2-fixing bacteria, Clostridium autoethanogenum, to produce isobutanol, a next-generation biofuel. Throughout her PhD, she uses multi-omics analysis to better understand the native and recombinant acetogenic metabolism and further improve productivity. |
Marcelo Pedroso is a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland. His main research interest is in the field of enzymology. Particularly, he is interested in understanding structure–function relationships in enzymes, which integrates molecular and structural biology, enzyme biochemistry and spectroscopy to uncover and improve the reaction mechanisms catalysed by enzymes enabling the conversion of renewable feedstocks into chemicals that are green and environmentally friendly. |
Audrey Harris is a Senior Scientist at LanzaTech in Skokie, Illinois. She has worked in a variety of environmentally focused microbiology research laboratories and is interested in the potential of Synthetic Biology to solve climate and energy issues towards a more equitable future. |
Shivani Garg is a Project Manager in Metabolic Engineering group at LanzaTech. Her role at LanzaTech is to advance the fuels production platform by engineering anaerobic acetogens. She is deeply interested in development of technologies that enable sustainable production and commercialisation of fuels and chemicals. |
Damian Hine is an innovation economist who is Professor of Future Markets and BioEconomies in the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) at the University of Queensland. |
Michael Köpke is a pioneer in Synthetic Biology of carbon fixing microbes with over 15 years of experience in biotech. He has led several seminal studies, including providing a first genetic blueprint of anaerobic gas fermenting microbes and demonstration that these microbes can be reprogrammed for carbon-negative biomanufacturing of fuel and chemical products directly from CO2, industrial emissions, or municipal solid waste. |
Gerhard (Gary) Schenk is a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Queensland. His main research interests focus on the discovery, characterisation and optimisation of enzymes (i.e. biocatalysts) for processes that are relevant for applications in the bioeconomy. Specifically, he is interested in establishing enzyme-based reactions that enable the conversion of renewable feedstocks or waste streams into valuable products (including biofuels). |
Esteban Marcellin is an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland. His group applies systems and synthetic biology to identify bottlenecks in metabolism to improve production. His primary interest is developing microbial platforms capable of consuming greenhouse gases, instead of sugars, as fermentation feedstocks to help mitigate the effects of climate change. |
Microbiology Australia 44(1) 31-35 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA23008
Submitted: 15 January 2023 Accepted: 16 February 2023 Published: 6 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
The challenge of limiting global warming to below 1.5°C requires all industries to implement new technologies and change practices immediately. The aviation industry contributes 2% of human-induced CO2 emissions and 12% of all transport emissions. Decarbonising the aviation industry, which relies heavily on high-density liquid fuels, has been difficult to achieve. The problems are compounded by the continued reliance on so-called sustainable aviation fuels, which use first-generation agricultural feedstocks, creating a trade-off between biomass for food and feed and its use as a feedstock for energy generation. Decarbonising aviation is also challenging because of problems in developing electric aircraft. Alternative feedstocks already exist that provide a more feasible path towards decelerating climate change. One such alternative is to use gas fermentation to convert greenhouse gases (e.g. from food production and food waste) into fuels using microbial acetogens. Acetogens are anaerobic microorganisms capable of producing alcohols from gaseous CO, CO2 and H2. Australia offers feedstock resources for gas fermentation with abundant H2 and CO2 production in proximity to each other. In this review, we put forward the principles, approaches and opportunities offered by gas fermentation technologies to replace our dependency on fossil fuels for aviation fuel production in Australia.
Keywords: acetogens, aviation fuel, carbon footprint, Clostridium autoethanogenum, gas fermentation, greenhouse gases emissions, isobutanol, sustainable aviation fuel.
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