Bi Changhao, Zhang Xueli and Wang Junsong from Tianjin Institute of industrial biology, Chinese Academy of sciences have made new progress in microbial Electrosynthesis

Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) is a process in which microorganisms synthesize CO2, glucose or other substrates into various target chemicals by using electric energy as reducing power With the excessive emission of greenhouse gas CO 2, microbial electrosynthesis, as a green, sustainable and promising technology for carbon sequestration, has become a hot research topic for scientists Microbial electrosynthesis system includes anode (counter electrode), reference electrode and cathode (working electrode) The electron of the cathode is converted into reduction equivalent in the cell, which can provide reduction power for some synthesis reactions in the cell, such as CO 2 fixation, fumaric acid reduction to succinic acid, etc Recently, Bi Changhao research team of Tianjin Institute of industrial biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Zhang Xueli research team cooperated to make important progress in microbial electrosynthesis technology The researchers first designed and built a microbial electrosynthesis platform mediated by neutral red as an electronic carrier In the future, the mtrabc membrane protein complex related to the electron transfer pathway of MR-1 of Schwarzschild's bacteria will be developed Introduce E.coli, construct high electric activity E.coli electric energy cells and verify the electric activity; finally, researchers applied high electric activity E.coli to MES system for electric synthesis reaction, and found that it is conducive to more reduction products (lactic acid, ethanol) production, and then applied high electric activity E.coli electric energy cells to succinic acid synthesis with carbon fixation steps In this way, the synthesis of succinic acid was carried out with CO 2 and glucose as substrates It was found that the conversion of succinic acid was greatly improved Further integrating carbon concentration mechanism (CCM), the conversion of succinic acid was again improved In this study, the first E coli electric energy cell factory was built, which laid the foundation for the deep development and final application of this new technology The research was supported by the key deployment projects of the Chinese Academy of Sciences The results were published in microbial cell factories (DOI: 10.1186 / s12934-019-1067-3) Wu Zaiqiang, a doctoral student jointly trained by Nanjing University of science and technology and Tianjin Institute of industrial biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is the first author of the paper, while Bi Changhao, researcher of Tianjin Institute of industrial biology, Zhang Xueli, and Wang Junsong, Professor of Nanjing University of science and technology, are the corresponding authors of the paper.