Converting complex valuable chemicals out of CO₂

Carbon-Efficient Bioproduction of Valuable Chemicals from Methanol

The ARB (Analysis and Redesign of Biological Networks) Group of Steffen Klamt at the Max Planck Institute in Magdeburg is partner in the larger EU project CarboNcare. The project aims to develop new microbial fermentation processes converting renewable methanol into valuable chemicals for medical, cosmetic and food products. The specific task of the ARB Group is to use computational biology and metabolic modeling to help design microbial cell factories.

In the EU Horizon Europe project CarboNcare scientists are building a sustainable and resilient future to produce the chemicals that are used in daily life.

In this scheme methanol, a C1 compound that can be generated chemically from electricity and CO₂, is the reduced hub molecule that connects CO₂ with biological conversion.

The CarboNcare project focusses on the biological utilization of methanol for the efficient and stable bioproduction of chemicals. To achieve this, researchers are combining the biomanufacturing breakthroughs of efficient methanol assimilation (enabling a fast carbon to product conversion rate) and growth-coupled bioproduction (ensuring high yield and stable production).

Researchers exploit this for high yield production of chemicals like lactate, succinate, 2,3-butanediol from methanol and develop continuous fermentation strategies. The overall aim is to build the foundation of a circular CO₂-based economy that combines the strength of chemistry with that of biology.

The consortium involves an interdisciplinary team including expertise from partners of the following institutions:
 

• Institute of Biochemistry at Charité (Berlin, Germany)
• Institute of Biology at Leiden University (Leiden, Netherlands)
• Technical University of Denmark (Lyngby, Denmark)
• CEA / Genoscope - National Center of Sequencing (Evry, France)
• Haute Ecole Specialisee De Suisse (University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Western Switzerland)
• IN Society (Udine, Italy)
• DECHEMA (Germany)
• Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems (Magdeburg, Germany)