CHARM: From CO2 to Hydrocarbons in A circular bioelectRo- and photo-cheMical system

ended

The transport sector is one of the largest and fastest growing energy consumers, and one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize. Although there are projections of a rapid increase in low-power electric vehicles, there is still uncertainty in decarbonising high-power transport vehicles (ships and long-haul trucks). The European Union has committed to achieving at least 27% renewable energy share of gross energy consumption by 2030. A practical implementation is to produce advanced biofuels using bio-based technologies e.g. bio/electro/photo catalysis. These technologies can be used either alone or in a combined way to produce desired products e.g. hydrogen, methane, carboxylic acids, and hydrocarbons. Among these options, hydrocarbons are advantageous due to their versatile use and valorisation opportunities. However, current conversion technologies pose significant challenges: (1) whole cell fermentation is vulnerable to many factors (e.g. products inhibition), whist a wide range of by-products may be produced due to diverse pathways; and (2) traditional linear conversion processes have limited sustainability. To tackle these issues, I propose a two-year fellowship (CHARM) based on the Biocatalysis group led by Prof Hollmann in TU Delft. CHARM proposes a novel bio-based circular approach to enable production of light-weight hydrocarbons from both biomass and CO2 by integrating microbial fermentation, bioelectrochemical synthesis and bio-photocatalysis. CHARM will explore production of caproic acid as a platform chemical and its bio-photocatalytic conversion to value added C5 hydrocarbon (i.e. from CO2 to C5H12), whilst fulfilling CO2 recycle. Through this fellowship, I will reach a level of maturity on not only several scientific aspects but also on managerial and industrial aspects that will provide me new career opportunities. The completion of CHARM will contribute to establishing me as a leading researcher in biofuels/bioenergy.