Microbial electrosynthesis from CO: forever a promise?

Antonin Prévoteau, Jose M Carvajal-Arroyo, Ramon Ganigué, Korneel Rabaey

Journal: Current opinion in biotechnology 2020;62():48-57

PMID: 31593911

Full Text on Elsevier Science View on PubMed

Abstract

Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) is an electrochemical process used to drive microbial metabolism for bio-production, such as the reduction of CO into industrially relevant organic products as an alternative to current fossil-fuel-derived commodities. After a decade of research on MES from CO, figures of merit have increased significantly but are plateauing yet far from those expected to allow competitiveness for synthesis of commodity chemicals. Here we discuss the substantial technological shortcomings still associated with MES and evoke possible ways to mitigate them. It appears particularly challenging to obtain both relevant production rates (driven by high current densities) and energy conversion efficiency (i.e. low cell voltage) in microbial-compatible electrolytes. More competitive processes could arise by decoupling effective abiotic electroreductions (e.g. CO to CO or ethanol; H evolution) with subsequent fermentation processes.

Address: Center for Microbial Ecology and Technology (CMET), Campus Coupure - Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium; CAPTURE, Belgium(4).; Center for Microbial Ecology and Technology (CMET), Campus Coupure - Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium; CAPTURE, Belgium(4). Electronic address: [email protected].

DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2019.08.014

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MeSH Terms: Carbon Dioxide, Electrodes, Fermentation