Gas Biological Conversions: The Potential of Syngas and Carbon Dioxide as Production Platforms

Gavala, Hariklia N.; Grimalt‐Alemany, Antonio; Skiadas, Ioannis V.

doi:10.1007/s12649-020-01332-7

Cited by 34 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 160 publications

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“…Actually, a very powerful approach consists of using the stripped ammonia to grow hydrogenotrophic bacteria (Matassa, Batstone, et al, 2015 ; Matassa, Boon, & Verstraete, 2015 ). This approach has been recently demonstrated and validated at the pilot scale within the Dutch national project ‘Power To Protein’, where the waste nitrogen recovered through stripping techniques from anaerobic sewage sludge digestate was subsequently upgraded into organic protein nitrogen in the form of high‐quality microbial proteins (Gavala et al, 2021 ). The latter were produced by fixing CO 2 through the oxidation of hydrogen gas under aerobic conditions by means hydrogen‐oxidizing bacteria (Matassa, Boon, et al, 2016 ).…”

Section: Straightforward Solutions To the Acute Nitrogen Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?

Matassa

Boeckx

Boere³

et al. 2022

Microbial Biotechnology

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Nitrogen is the most crucial element in the production of nutritious feeds and foods. The production of reactive nitrogen by means of fossil fuel has thus far been able to guarantee the protein supply for the world population. Yet, the production and massive use of fertilizer nitrogen constitute a major threat in terms of environmental health and sustainability. It is crucial to promote consumer acceptance and awareness towards proteins produced by highly effective microorganisms, and their potential to replace proteins obtained with poor nitrogen efficiencies from plants and animals. The fact that reactive fertilizer nitrogen, produced by the Haber Bosch process, consumes a significant amount of fossil fuel worldwide is of concern. Moreover, recently, the prices of fossil fuels have increased the cost of reactive nitrogen by a factor of 3 to 5 times, while international policies are fostering the transition towards a more sustainable agro‐ecology by reducing mineral fertilizers inputs and increasing organic farming. The combination of these pressures and challenges opens opportunities to use the reactive nitrogen nutrient more carefully. Time has come to effectively recover used nitrogen from secondary resources and to upgrade it to a legal status of fertilizer. Organic nitrogen is a slow‐release fertilizer, it has a factor of 2.5 or higher economic value per unit nitrogen as fertilizer and thus adequate technologies to produce it, for instance by implementing photobiological processes, are promising. Finally, it appears wise to start the integration in our overall feed and food supply chains of the exceptional potential of biological nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen produced by the nitrogenase enzyme, either in the soil or in novel biotechnology reactor systems, deserves to have a ‘renaissance’ in the context of planetary governance in general and the increasing number of people who desire to be fed in a sustainable way in particular.

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Section: Straightforward Solutions To the Acute Nitrogen Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?

Matassa

Boeckx

Boere³

et al. 2022

Microbial Biotechnology

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“…With stoichiometric H 2 addition, methane contents as high as 95-98% were achieved [75,76]. This thermo-biochemical route of biomass valorization and biomethane production is considered to be competitive and advantageous for small-scale installations compared to the physicochemical Sabatier process, which produces methane and water from a reaction of hydrogen with carbon-dioxide at high temperatures (300-400 °C) and pressures (3 MPa) in the presence of a nickel catalyst [77]. Another huge advantage of biological upgrading compared to the Sabatier-reaction is that it can tolerate contaminants such as hydrogen sulfide or siloxanes, and work with mixed CH 4 / CO 2 feed gas.…”

Section: Alternative Feed-gasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current Status of Biological Biogas Upgrading Technologies

Lóránt

Tardy

2022

Period. Polytech. Chem. Eng.

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To limit global warming, ratio of renewable sources in the energy mix has to be considerably raised in the following years. While application of e.g. wind and solar power usually generates fluctuations in the electric grid, biogas produced in anaerobic processes is an easy-to-store renewable energy source. Raw biogas contains generally ~55–70% methane and ~30–45% carbon-dioxide. Although raw biogas can be utilized directly for combustion or combined heat and power generation (CHP), its methane content can be raised to >95% by upgrading technologies, thus it can be valorized. By upgrading and cleaning, the quality of the upgraded biogas may reach the quality of the natural gas and it may be injected to the gas grid or used as fuel for devices optimized for natural gas. Several physico-chemical upgrading methods are available on the market (e.g. high pressure water scrubbing, pressure swing adsorption, membrane technology, etc.) to remove the carbon-dioxide content of the biogas. Opposite to the physico-chemical methods, where basically the CO2 removal is the main goal, in biological biogas upgrading technologies microorganisms are applied to convert the carbon-dioxide content of the biogas to methane (chemoautotrophic upgrading), or algal biomass (photoautotrophic upgrading). The expectations are high towards biological biogas upgrading technologies in the field of energy storage linked with carbon-dioxide capture. In this paper, latest research results concerning biological biogas upgrading are summarized, viability and competitiveness of this technology is discussed together with the most important future development directions.

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“…Thanks to the reductive acetyl-CoA pathway present in many anaerobic bacteria, mixtures of H 2 , CO 2 , and CO (often called syngas) are one of the most promising inorganic co-substrates for anaerobic fermentation [9, 10]. These gases allow to merge anaerobic fermentation of biomass with other promising green technologies such as dry biomass gasification (via syngas), power-to-gas (via H 2 ), carbon capture (via CO 2 ), or treatment of industrial off-gases (via CO) [11]. There are numerous ways to combine such technologies [12], and fermenting syngas and complex biomass in a one-pot process is one of the simplest [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formate-induced CO tolerance and innovative methanogenesis inhibition in co-fermentation of syngas and plant biomass for carboxylate production

Baleeiro

Varchmin

Kleinsteuber

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Production of monocarboxylates using microbial communities is highly dependent on local and degradable biomass feedstocks. Syngas or different mixtures of H2, CO, and CO2 can be co-fed to a fermenter to alleviate this dependence. To understand the effects of adding these gases during anaerobic fermentation of plant biomass, a series of batch experiments was carried out with different syngas compositions and corn silage (pH 6.0, 32°C). Co-fermentation of syngas with corn silage increased the overall carboxylate yield per gram of volatile solids (VS) by up to 44% (0.36 ± 0.07 g gVS-1; in comparison to 0.23 ± 0.04 g gVS-1 with a N2/CO2 headspace), despite slowing down biomass degradation. Ethylene and CO exerted a synergistic effect in preventing methanogenesis, leading to net carbon fixation. Less than 12% of the electrons were misrouted to CH4 when either 15 kPa CO or 5 kPa CO + 1.5 kPa ethylene was used. CO increased the selectivity to acetate and propionate, which accounted for 86% (electron equivalents) of all products at 49 kPa CO, by favoring lactic acid bacteria and actinobacteria over n-butyrate and n-caproate producers. This happened even when an inoculum pre-acclimatized to syngas and lactate was used. Intriguingly, the effect of CO on n-butyrate and n-caproate production was reversed when formate was present in the broth. The concept of co-fermenting syngas and plant biomass shows promise in two aspects: by making anaerobic fermentation a carbon-fixing process and by increasing the production of propionate and acetate. Testing the concept in a continuous process could improve selectivity to n-butyrate and n-caproate by enriching chain-elongating bacteria adapted to CO and complex biomass.

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Gas Biological Conversions: The Potential of Syngas and Carbon Dioxide as Production Platforms

Cited by 34 publications

References 160 publications

How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?

How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?

Current Status of Biological Biogas Upgrading Technologies

Formate-induced CO tolerance and innovative methanogenesis inhibition in co-fermentation of syngas and plant biomass for carboxylate production

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