A review of recent advances in engineering bacteria for enhanced CO 2 capture and utilization

• Published in: International journal of environmental science and technology (Tehran) Vol. 20; no. 4; p. 4635
• Main Authors: Onyeaka, H, Ekwebelem, O C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Iran 2023
• Subjects: Microorganisms; Bacteria; CO2 fixation; CO2 utilization; CO2 capture; Microbial fixation
• ISSN: 1735-1472; 1735-2630

Carbon dioxide (CO ) is emitted into the atmosphere due to some anthropogenic activities, such as the combustion of fossil fuels and industrial output. As a result, fears about catastrophic global warming and climate change have intensified. In the face of these challenges, conventional CO capture technologies are typically ineffective, dangerous, and contribute to secondary pollution in the environment. Biological systems for CO conversion, on the other hand, provide a potential path forward owing to its high application selectivity and adaptability. Moreover, many bacteria can use CO as their only source of carbon and turn it into value-added products. The purpose of this review is to discuss recent significant breakthroughs in engineering bacteria to utilize CO and other one-carbon compounds as substrate. In the same token, the paper also summarizes and presents aspects such as microbial CO fixation pathways, engineered bacteria involved in CO fixation, up-to-date genetic and metabolic engineering approaches for CO fixation, and promising research directions for the production of value-added products from CO . This review's findings imply that using biological systems like modified bacteria to manage CO has the added benefit of generating useful industrial byproducts like biofuels, pharmaceutical compounds, and bioplastics. The major downside, from an economic standpoint, thus far has been related to methods of cultivation. However, thanks to genetic engineering approaches, this can be addressed by large production yields. As a result, this review aids in the knowledge of various biological systems that can be used to construct a long-term CO mitigation technology at an industrial scale, in this instance bacteria-based CO capture/utilization technology.