Use of bac­teria to pro­duce valu­able sub­stances from car­bon dioxide

Microbes are already used on a wide scale for the pro­duc­tion of fuels and base chem­ic­als, but for this most of them have to be ​“fed” with sug­ar. How­ever, since sug­ar-based bio­tech­no­logy finds itself in com­pet­i­tion with food pro­duc­tion, it is faced with increas­ingly fierce cri­ti­cism. Car­bon diox­ide has mean­while become the focus of atten­tion as an altern­at­ive raw mater­i­al for bio­tech­no­lo­gic­al pro­cesses. Goethe Uni­ver­sity Frank­furt has now taken charge of a col­lab­or­at­ive European pro­ject, the aim of which is to advance the devel­op­ment of pro­cesses for micro­bi­al, CO₂-based bio­tech­no­logy. The pro­ject will be fun­ded over the next three years with € 2 mil­lion. ​“This applic­a­tion-ori­ented work is the logic­al con­tinu­ation of our suc­cess­ful endeav­ours over many years to under­stand the meta­bol­ism of CO₂-redu­cing acet­o­gen­ic bac­teria. We can now start to steer their meta­bol­ism in such a way that they pro­duce valu­able sub­stances and fuels which are inter­est­ing for man­kind”, says Pro­fess­or Volk­er Müller, pro­fess­or at the Insti­tute of Molecu­lar Bios­ciences of Goethe Uni­ver­sity Frank­furt. He is coordin­at­ing this transna­tion­al pro­ject in the frame­work of the ​“Indus­tri­al Bio­tech­no­logy” European Research Area Net­work (ERA-NET), with­in which the Ger­man research groups are fin­anced by the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research. This means that Goethe Uni­ver­sity Frank­furt now plays a pivotal role in the devel­op­ment of a next-gen­er­a­tion tech­no­logy. The spe­cial group of acet­o­gen­ic bac­teria con­verts car­bon diox­ide (CO₂) in a fer­ment­a­tion pro­cess which is inde­pend­ent of light and oxy­gen. The bac­teria use hydro­gen (H₂) or car­bon monox­ide (CO) or a mix of both (syn­thes­is gas) as a source of energy. How­ever, the bac­teria pro­duce very little cel­lu­lar energy in this meta­bol­ic pro­cess. This drastic­ally lim­its the product range pos­sible with gas fer­ment­a­tion, so that at present only acet­ic acid and eth­an­ol can be man­u­fac­tured on an indus­tri­al scale. That is why the col­lab­or­at­ive European pro­ject has set itself the object­ive of genet­ic­ally modi­fy­ing suit­able acet­o­gen­ic bac­teria in such a way that these ener­get­ic bar­ri­ers can be over­come. Part­ners in the con­sor­ti­um are Goethe Uni­ver­sity Frank­furt as well as the uni­ver­sit­ies in Ulm, Göt­tin­gen and La Coruna. ArcelorMit­tal, the largest steel man­u­fac­turer world­wide, is the indus­tri­al part­ner. This micro­bi­al, CO₂-based bio­tech­no­logy could in future be an envir­on­ment­ally friendly altern­at­ive for the repro­cessing of indus­tri­al waste gases rich in energy and car­bon and reduce our depend­ency on crude oil. The micro­bi­al fix­a­tion and trans­form­a­tion of CO₂ into raw mater­i­als pro­duced bio­lo­gic­ally addi­tion­ally makes it pos­sible to reduce green­house gas emis­sions. Quelle: Goethe-Uni­versität Frank­furt am Main