Enhancing CO2 Utilization
Optimizing conversion of CO2 into useful products
CO2 utilization mitigates greenhouse gas accumulation and provides valuable reagents for chemical synthesis. Biological CO2 conversion offers product selectivity and diversity. CO2 can be converted to oil using the non-photosynthetic anaerobe Moorella thermoacetica, which converts CO2 into acetate, and Yarrowia lipolytica, which converts acetate into lipids, in a two-stage reactor system. Efficient utilization of renewable biomass feedstocks is also an important goal towards sustainability. Biomass feedstocks, whose carbons are derived from atmospheric CO2, can be broken down into simple sugars and converted into useful products.
References
- Aristilde, L., Lewis, I. A., Park, J. O., Rabinowitz, J. D. Hierarchy in pentose sugar metabolism in Clostridium acetobutylicum. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 81:1452-1462 (2015) doi: 10.1128/AEM.03199-14