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Scientists Use Bacteria To Convert CO2 Into Valuable Chemicals
Scientists Use Bacteria To Convert CO2 Into Valuable Chemicals
com
02-21-2022
https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-use-bacteria-to-convert-co2-into-valuable-chemicals/ 1/7
6/7/22, 2:41 PM Scientists use bacteria to convert CO2 into valuable chemicals • Earth.com
“The accelerating climate crisis, combined with rapid population growth, pose
some of the most urgent challenges to humankind, all linked to the unabated
release and accumulation of CO2 across the entire biosphere,” said Jewett.
“By harnessing our capacity to partner with biology to make what is needed,
where and when it is needed, on a sustainable and renewable basis, we can begin
to take advantage of the available CO2 to transform the bioeconomy.”
Acetone and isopropanol are versatile chemical solvents that are widely used for a
number of different applications. The chemicals have a combined global market
value of $10 billion. But while these chemicals are incredibly useful and high in
demand, their production requires the use of the fossil fuels that drive global
warming.
The Northwestern team has found a way to manufacture these chemicals more
sustainably through a new gas fermentation process. The technique uses
Clostridium autoethanogenum, an anaerobic bacterium engineered at LanzaTech,
and synthetic biology tools which ferment CO2 to make acetone and IPA.
“These innovations, led by cell-free strategies that guided both strain engineering
and optimization of pathway enzymes, accelerated time to production by more
than a year,” said Jewett.
https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-use-bacteria-to-convert-co2-into-valuable-chemicals/ 2/7
6/7/22, 2:41 PM Scientists use bacteria to convert CO2 into valuable chemicals • Earth.com
The Northwestern and LanzaTech teams believe the developed bacterial strains
and fermentation process could be used on an industrial scale.
–—
By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
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