Aalto University Secures Funding for Research Project Centered on Biotechnological CO2 Valorization

Scheller and Jouhten’s research project focuses on cell factories for CO₂ valorization by combining the disciplines of biochemistry and computational biology. The goal is to utilize microbes as biocatalyst for the conversion of CO₂ and hydrogen to organic feedstocks. The research project may provide new solutions for mitigating global warming, and it is linked to the hydrogen economy.

The project utilizes microbes that evolved in nature for efficiently converting CO₂ to acetate or to methane. It takes advantage of the outstanding CO₂-conversion capabilities in these cells, but it engineers those cells to produce more useful compounds.

The expected outcome of the project is to identify the best-suited microbe for biotechnological CO₂-valorization, and to design strategies to make them produce multi-carbon compounds that may help in substituting fossil resources.