Air2Protein: Nutritious and usable microbial food without arable land or fossil fuels.

The increasing global population and living standards necessitate a protein transition for a more sustainable food system. A solution lies in microbial protein, i.e. the use of microbial biomass as alternative protein source for human nutrition. This is particularly sustainable when based on renewable electron and carbon sources that do not require arable land nor fossil fuels. This is enabled by the movements towards green electrification and carbon capture which yield new routes to H2, CO2 and compounds derived from CO2 (e.g. methanol, formic acid, acetic acid). Key challenges are to produce microbial biomass on these compounds that is nutritious and practically usable. In the Air2Protein project, a target-driven approach will be used to select the best strains, metabolisms and cultivation conditions starting from H2, CO2 and/or CO2 derivatives. Herein, not only the protein 3 content is of interest, but also essential amino acids and fatty acids, and vitamins. Furthermore, novel stabilization and other downstream processing methods will be explored. Air2Protein aligns with the sustainable H2 and CO2 based economy, and aims to contribute to novel nutritious and usable protein ingredients for the food industry.

Keywords:CO2 CONVERSION, INDUSTRIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY, MICROBIAL PROTEIN, SUSTAINABLE FOOD PRODUCTION

Disciplines:Carbon capture engineering, Environmental microorganism biotechnology, Bioprocessing, bioproduction and bioproducts, Fermentation