The ability to mass-produce sustainable materials from thin air sounds like a fantasy pitch. Yet the prospect is now a reality, thanks to microscopic algae called cyanobacteria.
Their knack for converting sunlight into energy is spurring biotech startups to deploy them in biomanufacturing systems that turn basic inputs into valuable industrial chemicals.
Companies have developed strains that make high-value chemicals with just a fraction of the carbon footprint associated with petrochemical manufacturing pathways.
Here is why the industry has high hopes for cyanobacteria biomanufacturing.
Manufacturing with cyanobacteria
The biomanufacturing world depends on some of the most primitive lifeforms on earth: think the yeast or E. coli bacteria used to precision-ferment dairy protein or biopharmaceuticals.
Cyanobacteria are no exception. Like other industrial microorganisms, these simple multicellular forms have an ancient history: their fossil record starts at around 1.9 billion years ago, compared to just 500 billion years ago for land plants.
These microscopic forms look nothing like plants. However, they share a key feature with them that is central to their industrial usefulness: the ability to photosynthesise – in other words, turn light and air into energy.
Cyanobacteria were the evolutionary origin point of plant photosynthesis. At some point in the distant past, some extinct cyanobacterial species likely evolved into chloroplasts, the cell components that allow plants to photosynthesise.
Today, the algae remain masters of photosynthesis. While land plants concentrate only 0.5-0.3% of solar energy they capture into growth and energy, cyanobacteria can convert up to 9%.
One reason for their photosynthetic efficiency is that unlike plants, cyanobacteria do not have to direct solar energy into forming roots, stems, leaves, or flowers – all bodily components that they do not need.
Instead, all the energy they capture from the sun can be directed into simply preserving themselves, as well as producing valuable chemicals for us.
Sunlight into materials
This incredible photosynthetic ability is something that biobased chemicals producers are turning to their advantage.
Danish company Lifebloom constructs whole biomanufacturing systems in which cyanobacteria work around the clock to metabolise valuable chemicals.
Sunlight, air, and a smattering of nutrients are the basic ingredients these systems need to form specialist biochemicals, such as ethical palm oil for the skincare industry. This is a sector that founder and CEO Chris Christiansen knows well, having previously launched a skincare company.
The UK’s DeepBlue Biotech, founded in 2023, is another emerging cyanobacteria startup targeting the personal care ingredients market.
Their first target product is hyaluronic acid, conventionally made from animals or sugar-intensive fermentation processes. These require far more land, energy, and emissions than the basic elements which go into a cyanobacterial manufacturing system.
Biobased startups are drawn to cyanobacteria because of natural traits that afford a cost advantage over other industrial microorganisms.
Not only do cyanobacteria win out over plants in terms of photosynthetic efficiency, they also have an edge on rival microorganisms when it comes to input costs.
Unlike yeast or E. coli, cyanobacteria do not need sugar as an input, giving biobased producers one less variable to worry about when it comes to keeping the algae alive and happy.
A carbon guzzler
Using cyanobacteria to create biobased ingredients would allow the chemical industries to reduce their fossil footprint. This is because they could replace the petrochemicals that dominate today’s manufacturing landscape.
However, lower carbon raw materials is just one sustainability benefit that cyanobacterial bio-manufacturing offers. Another one is their capacity for carbon removal.
Carbon removal refers to technologies that actively draw greenhouse gases down from the atmosphere and convert them into a solid, stable material that cannot contribute to global warming.
Carbon removal tech either works by capturing emissions on industrial sites, thereby preventing fumes from ever entering the atmosphere, or by grabbing carbon dioxide directly from the air.
Despite being a growing sector, dominant carbon removal techniques are too expensive to run at a scale. This is why so many capture projects around the world are still in their concept stage even though rapid, mass deployment is needed to meet global Net Zero Emissions scenarios.
With organisms like cyanobacteria, biobased methods of carbon capture could overcome the cost barrier that has prevented physico-chemical carbon capture plants from getting off the ground at scale.
Capturing carbon with algae
UK-based CyanoCapture is leading the charge in using cyanobacteria for carbon capture and clean manufacturing at the same time.
Founded by Oxford University graduates, the company has developed a dual use cyanobacteria biomanufacturing system that simultaneously produces low-carbon goods while preventing industrial greenhouse gases from reaching the atmosphere.
This algae-driven production line – where genetically engineered bacteria turns carbon dioxide into useful biomass and biobased oils – is designed to be integrated into industrial plants. The cyanobacteria bio-factory siphons off waste emissions from the manufacturing, turning this pollutant into valuable solid products before they ever enter the atmosphere.
This system offers a low-cost form of carbon capture. This is because materials made by the cyanobacteria are byproducts made from free, abundant waste but are specialist chemicals with high market value.
One of the chemical products that can be produced using CyanoCapture’s system is insulin. Graphite is another, an in-demand raw material within the lithium ion battery industry.
With low input costs and valuable end products, the company claims this is a carbon capture tech that essentially pays for itself.
According to the company, it is on track to become the first to bring the cost of carbon capture below €50 per tonne of carbon dioxide. Its first of a kind 80, 000 litre carbon dioxide-to-insulin pilot project is due to be launched in 2026.
A wider variety of specialist chemicals made by cyanobacteria could be on the horizon. Various species of cyanobacteria naturally produce different compounds, including those that protect against the harmful effects of UV rays from the sun. This could be the beginnings of sustainable yet low-cost UV protection for humans – something that has so far eluded the skincare industry.
Living materials
As well as chemicals, cyanobacteria are good at turning sunlight and carbon dioxide into hard, durable building materials with a far lower carbon intensity than conventional concrete.
This means that another sector where cyanobacteria could tamp down manufacturing emissions is in construction, a sector currently grappling with its large carbon footprint and lack of circularity.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies has demonstrated that Cyanobaceteria can form limestone-like rocks using only cheap, abundant inputs. There, researchers managed to mineralise their algae by adding calcium sources to the nutrient solution the cyanobacteria were being cultivated in.
After that, the researchers can use the mixture to create a mixture of hydrogels and various fillers, such as different kinds of sand, including sea or silica sand. The resulting mixture can be poured into any type of mould to harden. This all-rounder material holds potential applications as insulation, bricks, or mortar and decorative stuccos.
Researchers say that waste carbon dioxide from industrial plants could provide feedstock for the whole process, offering a circular manufacturing process for high-volume construction materials.
Living materials
Cyanobacteria could also perform useful tasks while still alive. Here, in the high-tech arena of living biomaterials, their biotechnological potential appears almost endless.
Last year, ETH Zurich researchers reported on a living cyanobacteria-based coating that binds carbon dioxide incredibly efficiently and strengthens the structures they are spread on. This biobased architectural ‘additive’ could turn ordinary buildings into natural carbon removal infrastructures.
In 2023, the University of California San Diego released a study that created a living, photosynthesising biomaterial using the algae. This self-powered organic device was able to decontaminate microscopic pollutants released from the dye industry. It could do this independently because the microorganisms inside are capable of responding to chemical stimuli around it, just like a living organism.
Air becomes feedstock
Until now, biomaterials have mostly been made from crops, waste plant matter, algae or fungi – in other words, solid matter. Now, using cyanobacteria, industry could use air itself as a raw material.
Using little electricity or heating, these creatures can convert this abundant gas into chemicals rapidly and at low cost. Thanks to their highly efficient photosynthesis, cyanobacteria could become the next industrial workhorse microorganism, on par with yeast and E. coli in the industrial ecosystem today.
When integrated into existing industrial sites, cyanobacterial manufacturing systems can simultaneously capture carbon emissions while replacing petrochemical inputs in the production process. These microbes could also spearhead low-cost biobased carbon removal capacity, succeeding in lowering costs where conventional chemical approaches have failed.
All in all, the natural resilience, resource-efficiency and photosynthetic ability of cyanobacteria make them ideal for achieving lower-cost biomanufacturing.
These organisms are proof once again that advances in biomanufacturing often rely on the properties of simple yet remarkable lifeforms for new ways to make sustainable chemicals more cost-effective.
The post The algae that make chemicals from air appeared first on World Bio Market Insights.
