21EBTA: NO CARBON LOST - ELIMINATING CO2 PRODUCTION FROM FERMENTATION PROCESSES

世界目前面临着许多危机，但没有一个危机比气候变化更具潜在破坏性。反常的是，正是在全球大流行期间，任何关于人类不负责任的疑虑似乎都消失了。在此期间，极端天气模式的发生似乎激增，头条新闻报道了洪水、热浪、森林火灾、飓风/龙卷风以及不断记录的冰盖融化。这一切都是我们在能源和化学品生产中使用化石燃料以及随之而来的温室气体（GHG）、二氧化碳（CO2）排放的结果。虽然可以想象，人类的聪明才智可以扩大我们的替代能源（风能、太阳能、水能、电池电力）的范围，使我们不再需要使用化石燃料来发电和取暖，但现代社会完全依赖于目前从石油中提取的化学物质和材料。我们周围几乎所有不是由金属、木材、石头、玻璃、羊毛或棉花制成的东西都是由石油制成的。这包括塑料、地毯、服装、鞋子、化妆品、药品、风力涡轮机叶片、船只等。因此，社会面临的最大挑战之一是未来从非石化资源中可持续生产化学品，同时减少温室气体（GHG）排放。解决方案是找到一种方法，将植物材料或生物质转化为我们需要的化学物质和材料。这可以通过微生物发酵过程来完成，其中生物质通过水解酶的作用分解为单糖或通过热的作用分解为简单的单一碳气体CO和CO2和氢。后一过程称为气化，而所产生的气体混合物称为合成气或合成气。这些简单形式的碳，糖或合成气，然后可以由微生物发酵成所需的产品。一个简单的例子就是酿造啤酒，酵母微生物将糖转化为乙醇。以这种方式开发生物质将在实现英国的NetZero目标方面发挥重要作用。理论上，任何微生物都可以被改造成任何化学物质。然而，传统的以碳水化合物为基础的发酵过程，如乙醇生产，浪费了超过三分之一的碳，这些碳没有被纳入产品中，而是以二氧化碳的形式损失。消除这一损失将减少微生物发酵所固有的温室气体的排放，并显著提高生产率，可能提高50%以上。这个项目，NO CARBON loss，明确地着手开发微生物和过程，这些微生物和过程在分解的生物质上生长，释放二氧化碳，并产生更多的产品。我们战略的基础是在封锁期间启动的，并利用了诺丁汉SBRC目前与气体和糖原料开采相关的活动。我们将使用单一培养来开发一个平台细菌菌株，从生物质衍生的糖或合成气中制造酒精，同时同时固定二氧化碳。与此同时，我们将使用一个人工合成的群落，包括一个工程生物质降解细菌和一个消耗二氧化碳的微生物，在不产生二氧化碳的情况下生产所需的产品（酒精和挥发性脂肪酸）。我们还将使用两者的组合生产一种可生物降解的塑料。该项目将以运行过程的计算机模拟为基础。将仔细监测所进行的工作，并确保以社会可接受的方式进行。NO CARBON loss旨在利用SBRC Nottingham在气体发酵底盘工程方面的知识和能力，在传统上使用碳水化合物原料的发酵过程中引入逐步改变，进一步减少生物质开发的碳足迹。

The world currently faces a number of crises, but none more potentially devastating than climate change. Perversely, it has been during the period of the global pandemic that any remaining doubts that man is not responsible have seemingly evaporated. During this period, the occurrence of extreme weather patterns appear to have proliferated with headline news reporting on floods, heatwaves, forest fires, hurricanes/tornados and the continuing documentation of melting ice sheets. All is a consequence of use of fossils fuels for our energy and chemicals manufacture and the consequent emissions of the Greenhouse gas (GHG), carbon dioxide (CO2). Whilst it is conceivable that the ingenuity of humankind can expand our array of alternative energy sources (wind, solar, hydro, battery power) to a level that dispense with the need for using fossil fuels for energy and heating, modern society is entirely reliant on the chemicals and materials that are currently derived from oil. Almost everything that surrounds us that is not made of metal, wood, stone, glass, wool or cotton is made from oil. That includes plastics, carpets, clothing, shoes, cosmetics, medicines, wind turbine blades, boats, etc. Accordingly, one of the greatest challenges facing society is the future sustainable production of chemicals from non-petrochemical resources while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The solution is to derive processes that can convert plant material, or biomass, into the chemicals and materials we need. This may be accomplished by microbial fermentation processes wherein the biomass is broken down either through the action of hydrolytic enzymes into simple sugars or through the action of heat into simple single carbon gases CO and CO2 and hydrogen. The latter process is called gasification, and the gas mixture generated referred to as synthesis gas or syngas. These simple forms of carbon, sugar or syngas, may then be fermented by microbes into a desired product. A simple example would be making beer, where the yeast microbe converts sugar into ethanol. The exploitation of biomass in this way will feature prominently in meeting the UKs NetZero targets. Theoretically, any microbe can be engineered to make any chemical. However, traditional, carbohydrate-based fermentation processes, such as ethanol production, waste more than one third of the carbon which is not incorporated into the product but lost in the form of CO2. Eliminating this loss would ablate the emission of a greenhouse gas that is inherent to microbial fermentations and dramatically improve productivity, potentially by greater than 50%. This project, NO CARBON LOST, explicitly sets out to develop microbes and processes that grow on the deconstructed biomass with releasing CO2 and makes more product. The foundations of our strategy were initiated during lockdown and draw on current activity at SBRC Nottingham related to exploitation of gaseous and sugar feedstocks. We will use monocultures to exploit a platform bacterial strain to make an alcohol from biomass-derived sugars or syngas while at the same time while simultaneously fixing CO2. In parallel, we will use an artificial synthetic, community comprising an engineered biomass-degrading bacterium and a Co2-consumimg microbe, to make the desired products (an alcohol and a volatile fatty acid) without CO2 production. We will also produce a biodegradable plastic using a combination of the two. The project will be underpinned by computerised modelling of the processes in operation. The work undertaken will be carefully monitored and ensured to undertaken in a socially acceptable manner.NO CARBON LOST seeks to build on the knowledge and capabilities of SBRC Nottingham in engineering the biology of gas fermenting chassis to introduce a step-change in fermentation processes traditionally used with carbohydrate feedstocks, further reducing the carbon footprint of biomass exploitation.