Microbial electrosynthesis: Towards sustainable biorefineries for production of green chemicals from CO2 emissions

Dessì, Paolo and Rovira-Alsina, Laura and Sánchez, Carlos and Dinesh, G. Kumaravel and Tong, Wenming and Chatterjee, Pritha and et al, . (2021) Microbial electrosynthesis: Towards sustainable biorefineries for production of green chemicals from CO2 emissions. Elsevier Inc..

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Abstract

Decarbonisation of the economy has become a priority at the global level, and the resulting legislative pressure is pushing the chemical and energy industries away from fossil fuels. Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) has emerged as a promising technology to promote this transition, which will further benefit from the decreasing cost of renewable energy. However, several technological challenges need to be addressed before the MES technology can reach its maturity. The aim of this review is to critically discuss the bottlenecks hampering the industrial adoption of MES, considering the whole production process (from the CO2 source to the marketable products), and indicate future directions. A flexible stack design, with flat or tubular MES modules and direct CO2 supply, is required for site-specific decentralised applications. The experience gained for scaling-up electrochemical cells (e.g. electrolysers) can serve as a guideline for realising pilot MES stacks to be technologically and economically evaluated in industrially relevant conditions. Maximising CO2 abatement rate by targeting high-rate production of acetate can promote adoption of MES technology in the short term. However, the development of a replicable and robust strategy for production and in-line extraction of higher-value products (e.g. caproic acid and hexanol) at the cathode, and meaningful exploitation of the currently overlooked anodic reactions, can further boost MES cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, the use of energy storage and smart electronics can alleviate the fluctuations of renewable energy supply. Despite the unresolved challenges, the flexible MES technology can be applied to decarbonise flue gas from different sources, to upgrade industrial and wastewater treatment plants, and to produce a wide array of green and sustainable chemicals. The combination of these benefits can support the industrial adoption of MES over competing technologies. © 2020 The Authors

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IITH Creators:

IITH Creators	ORCiD
Chatterjee, Pritha	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7989-6131

Item Type:

Other

Additional Information:

This work was performed on the framework of the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Pathfinder Award on “Hybrid Bio-Solar Reactors for wastewater treatment and CO 2 recycling” (award nr. 19/FIP/ZE/7572PF). L.R.-A. and S.P. thank the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the grant agreement No 760431 (BIORECO2VER), the Agency for Business Competitiveness of the Government of Catalonia (ACCIÓ; COMRDI16-1-0061 ) and Spanish Ministry of Science ( RTI2018-098360-B-I00 ). L.R.-A. acknowledge the support by the Catalan Government (2018 FI-B 00347) in the European FSE program (CCI 2014ES05SFOP007 ). S.P. is a Serra Húnter Fellow (UdG-AG-575) and acknowledges the funding from the ICREA Acadèmia award. LEQUiA has been recognized as consolidated research group by the Catalan Government with code 2017-SGR-1552. W.T. and P.F. acknowledge financial support from INTERREG Atlantic Area programme (Grant reference EAPA_190_2016), and P.F. acknowledges support from Royal Society Alumni programme. M.T. and H.V.M.H. acknowledge the financial support of Wetsus co-funders, i.e. the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, the Province of Fryslân, and the Northern Netherlands Provinces. P.C. acknowledges funding received from SERB, Govt. of India funded project (Grant Reference SRG/2019/00075).

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Bioelectrochemistry; Circular economy; CO2 reduction; Electrochemical cell; Gas fermentation; Microbial electrochemical technologies; Product purification; Scale-up

Subjects:

Civil Engineering

Divisions:

Department of Civil Engineering

Depositing User:

. LibTrainee 2021

Date Deposited:

06 Sep 2022 06:28

Last Modified:

06 Sep 2022 06:28

URI:

http://raiithold.iith.ac.in/id/eprint/10442