Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

American Chemical Society, Environmental Science and Technology, 14(49), p. 8833-8843, 2015

DOI: 10.1021/es506149d

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Selective enrichment establishes a stable performing community for microbial electrosynthesis of acetate from CO2

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
  • Must obtain written permission from Editor
  • Must not violate ACS ethical Guidelines
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
  • Must obtain written permission from Editor
  • Must not violate ACS ethical Guidelines
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The advent of renewable energy conversion systems exacerbates the existing issue of intermittent excess power. Microbial electrosynthesis can use this power to capture CO2 and produce multicarbon compounds as a form of energy storage. As catalysts, microbial populations can be used, provided side reactions such as methanogenesis are avoided. Here a simple but effective approach is presented based on enrichment of a robust microbial community via several culture transfers with H2:CO2 conditions. This culture produced acetate at a concentration of 1.29±0.15 gL-1 (maximum up to 1.5 gL-1; 25 mM) from CO2 at a fixed current of -5 Am-2 in fed-batch bioelectrochemical reactors at high N2:CO2 flow rates. Continuous supply of reducing equivalents enabled acetate production at a rate of 19±2 gm-2d-1 (projected cathode area) in several independent experiments. This is a considerably high rate compared with other unmodified carbon-based cathodes. 58±5% of the electrons was recovered in acetate, whereas 30±10% of the electrons was recovered in H2 as a secondary product. The bioproduction was most likely H2 based, however, electrochemical, confocal microscopy and community analyses of the cathodes suggested the possible involvement of the cathodic biofilm. Together, the enrichment approach and galvanostatic operation enabled instant start-up of the electrosynthesis process and reproducible acetate production profiles.