CO2RUe Biological Upgrading Capabilities

a graphic showing theUpgrading CO, hydrogen, and formate into chemical intermediates for making e-fuels and commodity chemicals

The CO2 Reduction and Upgrading for e-Fuels Consortium (CO2RUe) uses biological upgrading research capabilities to upgrade carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2), and formate into chemical intermediates for making e-fuels and commodity chemicals.

CO2RUe Biological Upgrading Projects

Biological Conversion of Formic Acid for CO2-to-Fuels

Collaborators: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

  • Develop the natural formatotroph Cupriavidus necator as a robust microbial host for conversion of formate to value-added products using fatty acids as an example.

CO2 Valorization via Rewiring Carbon Metabolic Network

Collaborators: NREL

  • Engineer non-photosynthetic microbes to produce 3-hydroxybutyrate from CO2 via syngas, using technoeconomic analysis (TEA) to understand cost drivers and generate target titers/rates/yields and gas fermentations to address TEA-guided metrics.

Bioconversion of Syngas from Electrochemical CO2 Reduction to Sustainable Aviation Fuels

Collaborators: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  • Electrochemical CO2 conversion to syngas mixtures (CO/CO2/H2) and then upgrade these mixtures to sustainable aviation fuel precursors.

Multiphysics Computational Fluid Dynamics for Design and Scale-Up of Gas Bioreactors That Utilize CO2

Collaborators: NREL

  • Develop coupled multiphysics models for gas-fermentation systems for CO/CO2 upgrading, identifying the physical limitations (mass transfer, mixing) of basic bioreactor systems with/without electrochemical interactions.
  • Test novel bioreactor systems in-silico at industrial scale and quantify potential improvements in productivity and energy efficiency.

CO2RUe Biological Upgrading Research Capabilities

  • Aerobic and anaerobic cultivation on gaseous and liquid carbon substrates
  • Full mass balance on fermentation and electrolyzer integration
  • Genetic tool development
  • Metabolic engineering non-model organisms
  • Metabolic modeling
  • Gas and liquid reactor computational modeling
  • Liquid and gas chromatography
  • Mass spectrometry
  • 13C fluxomics.

Contact Us

Questions? Contact CO2RUe to learn more and explore partnership opportunities for R&D in CO2 reduction and upgrading technologies.

Return to CO2RUe home page.