High CO2 – Metabolic responses and bioeconomic opportunities
Title
High CO2 – Metabolic responses and bioeconomic opportunities
General information
The project studies physiological adaptation of microbial communities and individual microbes to very high CO2 concentrations and explore microbial utilization of CO2 for establishing CO2-based bioeconomic value chains. We will use existing drill core samples from the Eger Rift (ER, terrestrial site, Czech Republic) and samples from the Grimsey Hydrothermal Field (GHF, Iceland) – two sites exhibiting extreme levels of the greenhouse gas CO2. As the composition of microbial communities depends on the available substrates to generate energy and biomass, the study of the “background” mineralogy is also required to understand complex interactions of biological and geochemical processes to get a comprehensive picture of the coupling between biosphere and geosphere and assess the potential of biological and mineral resources. By integrating multidsiciplinary expertise (geophysics, mineralogy, chemistry, microbiology, bioinformatics, bioengineering), the project will explore the biological resources evolved in the CO2-rich geological sites ER and GHF as basis to develop biotechnological processes using CO2 as substrate for microbially synthesized products.
Start
January, 2022
End
December, 2024
Funding (total)
-
Funding (GEOMAR)
-
Funding body / Programme
-
Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft
/ Helmholtz Innovation Pool
Coordination
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Geoforschung (GFZ), Germany
Contact
Partners
GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Germany
Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
