University of Delaware researchers look to microbes to convert CO into chemicals

In Delaware, in the quest to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere and curb climate change, University of Delaware researchers are turning to an interesting ally: bacteria that consume biomass sugars and CO2.

With a $2.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), researchers developing a system to produce bioenergy from a mix of microbes that can convert carbon dioxide into useful chemicals. 

This project is one of 15 recently funded by the Department of Energy to decrease carbon emissions in biorefining processes through the ARPA-E ECOSynBio program. According to the agency, these ECOSynBio projects will “develop technologies to explore innovative synthetic fermentation and biorefining processes that can be used across the range of energy, transportation, and agriculture spaces anywhere where biorefining is used to make processes more efficient and lower carbon emissions.”