INDUSTRIAL MICROBES INC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase II: 08b

Description

Current bioconversion technologies for producing fuels and chemicals from biomass suffer from significant carbon losses in the form of carbon dioxide.This is a fundamental property of the chemical states of the inputs and outputs, and it results in low carbon efficiency.If recaptured, this excess carbon could be upgraded into additional fuels and chemicals.Industrial Microbes and Opus 12 have developed novel biochemical and electrochemical catalysts that can be combined to achieve near-100% carbon conversion.The combined system will repurpose waste into high-value chemicals using renewable energy.Biogas, a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide, is the raw material for this system.Biogas is a waste product of biorefineries, wastewater treatment plants, and other sources of organic waste.The biocatalyst converts methane in the biogas into a valuable chemical product; all carbon dioxide in the system will be recycled into additional methane for bioconversion, in a process powered by renewable electricity.In Phase I, two complementary technologies were improved and shown to be compatible.The teams demonstrated conversion of carbon dioxide to methane and then to the target compound.In Phase II, they will build a physical prototype of a commercial process by combining and integrating the two technologies in one location.The Phase II effort includes improving the robustness of the electrochemical reactor and improving the amount of the target chemical produced.This project will demonstrate conversion of waste biogas into new chemical products with a clear path toward cost-competitive production.Biobased chemicals can provide sustainable alternatives to petrochemicals for paints, coatings, and bioplastics.This technology has multiple greenhouse gas benefits: use of both carbon dioxide and methane as raw materials, and replacement of petroleum associated with chemical production.The process developed in this project is sustainable, requires little energy, and produces mainly water as a byproduct.Production of high-value chemicals will incentivize the installation of combined anaerobic digestion / biogas conversion systems at landfills, wastewater treatment plants, and farms.A process that uses biogas to produce chemicals or fuels would create advanced manufacturing jobs.This project will deliver a bench-scale prototype that converts biogas into the target chemical using gas recycling.This prototype will generate the technical and economic data needed for Industrial Microbes to scale the process toward commercialization in collaboration with corporate partners.