NSF 2026: EAGER: Accelerated carbon mineralization sequestration in cation rich rock formations via microbial augmentation and stimulation

在化学，生物工程，环境和运输系统部门以及综合活动办公室的NSF 2026计划的支持下，南达科他州矿业与技术学院的Lingwall，Sani和Ustunisik教授及其团队探索了富含阳离子的岩层中生物加速的碳矿化过程。 减少大气中过量二氧化碳（CO2）的一种方法是通过捕获和储存来减少过量的CO2水平，这是导致极端天气和野火的一个因素。然而，储存面临着将CO2作为流体注入地下的风险，可能会迁移和逃逸。幸运的是，大自然已经通过深层岩石中的碳酸盐矿化提供了一种解决方案，最近已经证明可以封存大量的二氧化碳。该奖项开发了设计潜在的高容量，长期碳封存系统所需的实验室数据。与其他依赖于流体CO2保持在盖层下方的过程相反，该系统将碳作为岩石本身的一部分储存在岩石中。这种系统未来的好处是，与引发地震活动的水力压裂相反，它可以通过绑定深断层来减少地震活动。如果大规模部署，这种技术的另一个潜在影响是通过减少极端天气和野火风险，促进可持续性和复原力。 该项目的教育目标是通过开发温室气体生物矿化的演示，在各种学生中引起兴趣和好奇心。 该团队最近在生物矿化方面的工作和对最近示范的评估表明，生物学加速了玄武岩中的碳矿化。此外，深层天然和注入的回收盐水含有高浓度的钙和镁，提供了额外的阳离子来源。因此，该团队有机会通过生物增强或生物刺激在深层岩石中的碳酸盐矿化来确定封存的自然过程。该奖项旨在使用生物矿化微生物数据库中的极端微生物进行实验室实验，以观察和测量这种现象。该项目的目标是在适当的温度和压力下，通过实验室核心规模的生物强化和生物刺激实验，产生关于微生物加速碳固存的独特数据。在这项研究中，各种极端微生物已知启动生物矿化将测试液态二氧化碳转化为方解石多晶型物在深层玄武岩环境。该项目有四个主要组成部分：1）选择和表征岩石作为最佳候选物; 2）选择能够耐受CO2注入引起的pH值的生物矿化极端微生物; 3）研究这些岩石在没有微生物的情况下与CO2的矿化; 4）通过生物刺激或生物增强研究这些微生物的生物矿化。这项工作是跨学科的，是地质科学，工程和微生物学专业知识的融合，使用不同的仪器和方法跨越传统的学科界限。该项目进一步探索了NSF 2026 Idea Machine获奖主题的概念：生物启发能源利用;工程生活材料;地球拟态;变化世界中的全球微生物组;公共碳捕获和封存;地球化。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估而被认为值得支持。

With support from the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems and the NSF 2026 Program in the Office of Integrated Activities, Professors Lingwall, Sani, and Ustunisik and their team at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology explore biologically accelerated carbon mineralization processes in cation rich rock formations. One approach for mitigating excessive carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, a factor that contributes to extreme weather and wildfires, is to reduce excessive CO2 levels by capture and storage. However, storage runs the risk that CO2 injected underground as a fluid can migrate and escape. Fortunately, nature has provided a solution through carbonate mineralization in deep rock, which has recently been shown to sequester large quantities of CO2. This award develops laboratory data that would be needed for the design of a potentially high-capacity, long-term carbon sequestration system. As opposed to other processes that rely on fluid CO2 to stay contained below a caprock, this system stores the carbon in the rock as part of the rock itself. A future benefit of such a system is that, as opposed to fracking which induces seismicity, this can be used to reduce seismicity through binding of deep faults. Another potential impact of such technology, if deployed at scale, would be to contribute to sustainability and resilience by reducing extreme weather and wildfire risks. The educational goal of the project is to create interest and curiosity among a diverse range of students by developing demonstrations on greenhouse gas biomineralization. The team’s recent work in biomineralization and the evaluation of recent demonstrations shows that biology accelerates carbon mineralization in basalts. Moreover, natural and injected recovery brines at depth contain high concentrations of calcium and magnesium, providing additional cation sources. Thus, the team has the opportunity to identify natural processes for sequestration via carbonate mineralization from either bioaugmentation or biostimulation in deep rock. This award is to perform laboratory experiments using extremophiles from the database of biomineralizing microbes to observe and measure this phenomenon. The goal of this project is to produce unique data on microbially accelerated carbon sequestration through laboratory core scale bioaugmentation and biostimulation experiments at appropriate temperatures and pressures. In this research, various extremophiles known to initiate biomineralization will be tested for the conversion of liquid CO2 into calcite polymorphs in deep basalt environments. This project has four principle components: 1) select and characterize rock to be optimal candidates; 2) select biomineralizing extremophiles that can tolerate the pH induced by CO2 injection; 3) study the mineralization of these rocks with CO2 without microbes; and 4) study the biomineralization of these microbes through biostimulation or bioaugmentation. This work is transdisciplinary in nature and is a convergence of expertise from geologic sciences, engineering, and microbiology to use different instruments and methods across conventional disciplinary boundaries. This project further explores the concepts emerged from several NSF 2026 Idea Machine winning topics: Bioinspired energy utilization; Engineered living materials; Geomimicry; Global microbiome in a changing world; Public carbon capture and sequestration; and Terraforming earth.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.