Imagine a tiny factory where electricity and specialized bacteria work together to eat greenhouse gases. Instead of letting CO2 pollute the air, this system turns it into a liquid chemical that can be used to make strong plastics. It's like using a biological filter to turn waste air into valuable industrial materials at room temperature.
The chemical industry relies heavily on fossil-sourced energy and raw materials to produce essential building blocks like diamines. Current production methods, such as the Haber-Bosch process, are energy-intensive and environmentally damaging.
A bio-hybrid system using immobilized enzymes in hydrogel beads and engineered microbes to convert CO2 into diamine monomers.
If you are a polyamide producer dealing with high costs of fossil-derived raw materials — this project developed a bio-hybrid module that produces diamine monomers from CO2. This allows you to switch to sustainable, bio-based building blocks for your plastics.
If you are a green chemistry SME dealing with energy-intensive production processes — this project developed a method to create platform chemicals at ambient conditions. This reduces the energy requirements compared to traditional high-heat industrial methods.
If you are an emissions management firm dealing with captured CO2 waste — this project developed a cascade that converts CO2 to CO and then to acetate and diamines. This transforms a waste stream into a revenue-generating chemical product.
Based on available project data, specific cost figures are not provided, but the project aims to lower energy requirements by operating near room temperature compared to the Haber-Bosch process.
The project focuses on creating modules that are directly compatible with existing bioreactor infrastructure, suggesting a path toward industrial integration.
Based on available project data, there is no specific information regarding patents or licensing terms at this stage.
The technology is designed as bio-based and biohybrid modules that integrate seamlessly with existing bioreactor infrastructure.
The project period runs from 2023-11-01 to 2026-10-31, indicating it is currently in the development phase.
The consortium is heavily research-oriented, consisting of 5 partners from 3 countries (DE, DK, FR). With 2 universities and 2 research organizations, the academic weight is high, while the industry presence is limited to 1 SME (20% industry ratio), indicating the project is currently focused on technical validation rather than immediate commercial rollout.
Contact the Technical University of Munich (TUM) regarding the ECOMO project.
Contact SciTransfer to identify potential licensing partners for bio-hybrid CO2 conversion.
