Background
Food and water shortages are leading to the development of new technologies aimed at sourcing these resources from the air. Atmospheric water harvesting is an emerging field where atmospheric moisture, such as fog and clouds, is collected to obtain liquid water from the atmosphere (in addition to traditional rainwater harvesting). Recent approaches have been used to directly condense water from the air to obtain liquid water through compressor or desiccant-based methods. Simultaneously substantial technology development is occurring to capture and remove atmospheric CO2. However, there is now the challenge of the valorization or what to do with the captured CO2.
While numerous technologies exist that remove CO2 from the air and, in some cases, further transform it into simple carbohydrate molecules (e.g., formic acid) or one-carbon chemical species such as formaldehyde or methanol for further processing, their uses are limited. Biotechnology approaches to have bacteria transform the captured CO2 into food and protein are being developed. However, challenges still plague the goal of making food from the air.
Invention Description
Researchers at Arizona State University have developed a single integrated system that uses bacteria harvested from the air in conjunction with a photochemical fiber reactor to transform CO2 and other atmospheric contaminants into food (or high value biomass). In this system, bacteria are harvested from the atmosphere, possibly specific strains (e.g. methylobacteria) and placed into a growth solution that contains contaminants from the atmosphere and/or external essential trace nutrients. Air is delivered to the reactor, which contains carbon and nitrogen. External, concentrated CO2 can be provided to the system. The bacteria use these compounds and nutrients for their energy needs and to grow, creating new biomass/food. The bacteria are known to perform this process very efficiently and over a wide range of conditions (pH, temperature, salinity) compatible with the fiber use.
Potential Applications:
- Climate change mitigation technologies
- Sustainable food production
- Sustainable military operations
Benefits and Advantages:
- Extreme environment feature that only uses air and sunlight
- Use of atmospheric components such as C1 species
- Air purification due to C1 species removal