Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ENGICOIN (Engineered microbial factories for CO2 exploitation in an integrated waste treatment platform)

Teaser

The ENGICOIN project focuses on CO2 capture and exploitation for the sustainable production of value-added chemicals. To reach this goal ENGICOIN aims at developing 3 microbial factories integrated within a waste treatment platform located in the piedmontese area, ACEA...

Summary

The ENGICOIN project focuses on CO2 capture and exploitation for the sustainable production of value-added chemicals. To reach this goal ENGICOIN aims at developing 3 microbial factories integrated within a waste treatment platform located in the piedmontese area, ACEA pinerolese, to take advantages of costless CO2 stream produced by the plant.
In particular, the new microbial factories (MFs) are based on smart microorganisms which are able to use sunlight and H2 to transform CO2 into chemicals, as described below. To make these production competitive on a market scale ENGICOIN is currently working on microorganism modification to increase CO2 capture and conversion ability.
• Microbial Factory 1: based on the cyanobacteria Synechocystis to produce Lactic acid as a precursor of Lactate and bioplastics.

• Microbial Factory 2: based on the aerobic and toxic metal tolerant Ralstonia eutropha to produce Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) as precursor of bioplastics.

• Microbial Factory 3: based on the anaerobic Acetobacterium woodii to produce Acetone, which is required for the synthesis of polycarbonate plastics and other commodity chemicals.

Work performed

The ENGICOIN project started in January 2018 and will last 48 months. The core R&D activities are divided in three progressive phases with increasing TRL levels, from TRL3 to TRL5.
Currently, the project is in the first phase of R&D development which is mainly focused on microbial chassis design and improvement. In-fact, to make the production competitive on a market scale ENGICOIN is working on microorganism modification to increase CO2 capture and conversion ability. Synthetic and systems biology studies are ongoing to increase the CO2 uptake as substrate as well as its fast and selective transformation into the desired products or to facilitate product extraction. At the same time, a new PEM electrolyser for H2 production and integration with MF2 and MF3 is under development. All these R&D activities are running in accordance with the original plan. Moreover, in view of the final in field validation (phase 3), the basic site preparation activities have been carried out including the design of the validation site and experimental campaign as well as the feedstocks and services distribution lines deployment and the development of protocols to extract organic substrates from the AD digestate which will be utilized as complementary carbon substrates for the Microbial Factories.

Final results

The work performed so far has greatly increased the knowledge of the microbial chassis utilized in the three microbial factories, thus amplifying their effective application in other context with significant production of CO2 raw flue gases.
Moreover, coupling ENGICOIN technologies and processes for CO2 capture and conversion into value-added chemicals with waste treatment platform defines an ecologically and economically sustainable strategy. The project is developing a win-win condition perfectly matching with Circular Economy principles and aiming at the demonstration of a “near to zero waste biorefinery”.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.engicoin.eu/.