US Company Converts Polluted Air Into Usable Products

Based in Chicago, USA, carbon transformation startup LanzaTech successfully converted polluted air into usable products.

LanzaTech’s licensed novel microorganisms that convert waste emissions into ethanol have been used commercially by 3 Chinese factories.

That ethanol is then used as a chemical building block for consumer products such as plastic bottles, athletic wear, and even dresses, with major brand collaborations such as Zara and L’Oreal.

“I wouldn’t have thought that 14 years later, we would have a cocktail dress on the market that’s made out of steel emissions,” said microbiologist Michael Kopke, who joined LanzaTech a year after its founding.

According to LanzaTech, the company has kept 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, while producing 50 million gallons (190 million liters) of ethanol, a small step forward to attaining the actual quantities needed to combat climate change.

But having spent 15 years developing the methodology and providing its large-scale feasibility, the company is now seeking to ramp up its ambition and increase participating factories.

“We really want to get to a point where we only use above-ground carbon, and keep that in circulations,” says Kope – in other words, avoid extracting new oil and gas.

 LanzaTech currently employs about 200 people, using its carbon recycling technology by using carbon pollution and bacteria to make ethanol.

The converted bacteria are sent out in the form of freeze-dried powder to corporate clients in China which store it in bigger facilities.

Clients not only benefit from sales of ethanol but also obtain positive PR from offsetting pollution from their main businesses.

Because the bacteria can ingest CO2, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen, the process is extremely flexible, explains Zara Summers, LanzaTech’s vice president of science.

“We can take garbage, we can take biomass, we can take off gas from an industrial plant,” Summers added.

Zara has started selling products in the market at $90 that are made of polyester, 20% of which comes from captured gas.

LanzaTech also founded a separate company, LanzaJet, to use ethanol to create “sustainable aviation fuel” or SAF.

It aims to achieve 1 billion gallons of SAF production in the United States per year by 2030.

Unlike bioethanol produced from wheat, beets, or corn, the fuel created from greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t require the use of agricultural land.

According to LanzaTech, its next challenge is geared toward the commercialization of bacteria that will produce chemicals other than ethanol.

Specifically, producing ethylene is “one of the most widely used chemicals in the world,” Kopke explained which will save more energy.

Source: ABS-CBN