CO2-eating bacteria can recycle carbon from chimney smoke directly into new products

Researchers from Aarhus University (AU) have developed a new technology that uses microorganisms to convert the CO2 in flue gas directly for new purposes – for example fuels or substances for the chemicals industry.

The technology can exploit CO2 as a raw material, unlike conventional carbon capture and storage (CCS), which captures carbon from flue gas and converts it into solid matter that can then be stored underground, for example.

Technology proposed by the researchers from AU is a new form of bio-integrated carbon capture and utilization (BICCU), whereby carbon is reused directly in the circuit, avoiding many of the conventional intermediate process steps. The researchers at AU use microorganisms that both remove and convert CO2 from the flue gases directly in the capture unit instead of having to apply high heat.

"Microorganisms are hyper-specialized in the process of absorbing and converting CO2 and they have refined this process over billions of years. We exploit this in our bioreactors. So instead of using heat, we add microorganisms that can extract CO2 from other chemicals allowing us to save money on our heating bills," says Mads Ujarak Sieborg, a postdoc at the Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering and the main author of the new research.

Image source: Sieborg et al. (2024), Nature Communications.