Skies of blue: Recycling carbon emissions to useful chemicals and reducing global warming

[JacksinPA]

Skies of blue: Recycling carbon emissions to useful chemicals and reducing global warming: Researchers optimize a novel process for the efficient conversion of carbon emissions into useful chemicals like acetate using microbes

Researchers optimize a novel process for the efficient conversion of carbon emissions into useful chemicals like acetate using microbes

www.sciencedaily.com

Rapid global urbanization has dramatically changed the face of our planet, polluting our atmosphere with greenhouse gases and causing global warming. It is the need of the hour to control our activities and find more sustainable alternatives to preserve what remains of our planet for the generations to come.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) make up a large proportion of industrial flue gases. Recent research has shown that certain microorganisms are capable of metabolizing these gases into useful by-products. Thus, attempts are now being directed to using microbes to recycle these gases and convert them into useful chemicals in a process known as 'carbon capture and utilization' (CCU). This is a step beyond the current widespread practice of 'carbon capture and storage' (CCS). However, such CCU requires high energy input making the scaling up of this process difficult and expensive. How can this process then be optimized for maximum output?

A team of researchers from Korea, led by Prof. Jung Rae Kim from Pusan National University, have answered this question for a newer CCU system called the bioelectrochemical system (BES). Prof. Kim explains, "We have developed a 'bioelectrosynthetic process' in which electroactive bacteria convert CO/CO2 into useful metabolites like acetate and volatile fatty acids using electricity as the reducing power." The scientists were able to optimize BESs to increase their efficiency by 2 to 6 times that of current systems for CO gas. Their findings are published in Bioresource Technology since January 2021.
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Great concept. I hope they can commercialize it.

 

[Glitch]

The problem with the concept is that they incorrectly consider carbon dioxide a pollutant. To be a "pollutant" it must be harmful to life, like carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide is essential for life on this planet. If you kill off photosynthesis, all complex life on the planet eventually dies.

Not all greenhouse gases are pollutants. Water vapor is the greenhouse gas responsible for 95%+ of all radiative forcing, and it certainly cannot be construed as a "pollutant." According to OSHA, atmospheric CO2 does not become a problem for humans until it reaches 30,000 ppmV, or 3% of the total atmosphere. Considering that has not happened in the last 600 million years, I think it is also unlikely to occur any time in the near future.

Source: https://www.osha.gov/chemicaldata/chemResult.html?RecNo=183

 

[watsup]

The problem with the concept is that they incorrectly consider carbon dioxide a pollutant. To be a "pollutant" it must be harmful to life, like carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide is essential for life on this planet.

Not all greenhouse gases are pollutants. Water vapor is the greenhouse gas responsible for 95%+ of all radiative forcing, and it certainly cannot be construed as a "pollutant." According to OSHA, atmospheric CO2 does not become a problem for humans until it reaches 30,000 ppmV, or 3% of the total atmosphere. Considering that has not happened in the last 600 million years, I think it is also unlikely to occur any time in the near future.

Source: https://www.osha.gov/chemicaldata/chemResult.html?RecNo=183

You once again misdefine the term pollutant. Excess CO2 is clearly a pollutant by definition.
And I remain amazed that you are so knowledgeable about what happened 600,000 million years ago but seem unable to understand what is happening with the atmosphere today as a result of AGW.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

You once again misdefine the term pollutant. Excess CO2 is clearly a pollutant by definition.
And I remain amazed that you are so knowledgeable about what happened 600,000 million years ago but seem unable to understand what is happening with the atmosphere today as a result of AGW.

He seems stymied by the concept of EXCESS.
Of course CO2 is necesssary for all plant life, it's to them as O2 is to animals but both O2 and CO2 must have a kind of balance or else the environment gets out of whack for one or the other, and in our case it's the EXCESS CO2 that appears to be causing the imbalance.
And as has been pointed out, SOME animal life WOULD continue to survive however the conditions created by such a change in balance would change the WAY life is lived BY those surviving animals (like us) and how it would affect the more vulnerable species which depend on the balance of the two types of gasses staying right where it is NOW instead.
So to loosely summarize, life will change, drastically.
And that series of drastic changes are turning out to be quite incompatible with current civilization.
Anyone who thinks current human civilization can just be dropped into an atmosphere and environment resembling 300 thousand years ago is insane.

 

[watsup]

He seems stymied by the concept of EXCESS.
Of course CO2 is necesssary for all plant life, it's to them as O2 is to animals but both O2 and CO2 must have a kind of balance or else the environment gets out of whack for one or the other, and in our case it's the EXCESS CO2 that appears to be causing the imbalance.
And as has been pointed out, SOME animal life WOULD continue to survive however the conditions created by such a change in balance would change the WAY life is lived BY those surviving animals (like us) and how it would affect the more vulnerable species which depend on the balance of the two types of gasses staying right where it is NOW instead.
So to loosely summarize, life will change, drastically.
And that series of drastic changes are turning out to be quite incompatible with current civilization.
Anyone who thinks current human civilization can just be dropped into an atmosphere and environment resembling 300 thousand years ago is insane.

Wish I could do a double-like on that.
Looks like I just did!