Biotechnological carbon capture and conversion

Climate change is the biggest threat to humanity, and part of the solution will be to prevent the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In addition, the accompanying transition away from fossil fuels will require alternative methods of producing petrochemicals. Whilst many organisms can make use of greenhouses gases as a carbon source, they are largely difficult to engineer and have low productivity. Co-culturing systems, where two or more different populations of cells are grown with some degree of contact, can be constructed such that the advantages of one system can compensate for the disadvantages of another. This PhD will develop a novel platform technology that uses a co-culture to capture and convert greenhouse gases to useful products.The project aims to establish a proof-of-concept that demonstrates the technical feasibility of the approach using statistical design of experiments to optimise key operating parameters.