Re: [DIYbio] Growing Cupriavidus necator

A. Ekergård - Interesting idea.

I am not sure what exactly you mean by low -tech, it's a subjective thing. But I'll take a stab at helping out in any way I can...

In a previous incarnation I had some academic training in chemical engineering (BS), but I cannot say I remember much
of it, after 2 decades of not using it in my profession as a life scientist (PhD). With that disclaimer out of the way, here is what I found online:
  • Lab scale synthetic gas (sungas) fermenter from 2 kids' MS thesis at ND state univ - link , see page 15 onwards...
  • Please note that the microbe they used was Clostridium ljungdahlii
  • Not Cupriavidus necator as you've proposed, and therefore may not be exactly what you are looking for.
  • However, this article from 2017, suggests mutant strains (like OTA1) can be better Et-OH producers than the ATCC 55383 type strain
I think the recipe for fermentation / gas culture, from that Master's thesis, should help you assess if it is sufficiently low-tech to be possible and viable in your particular setting.

I am happy to answer any of your follow-up questions, but within the limitations in my practical knowledge of batch or continuous fermenters.
Perhaps someone with real life experience in syngas production can chime in about the technical challenges of doing this in a DIY setting?

Just curious - how would you procure the necessary strain(s)? I've had challenges with this, despite university connections, because of my "DIY" status.

BTW, your assessment that plants are way less efficient than solar panels is totally correct and reminded me of the great work being done at UIUC and with a large consortium of international collaborators to Realize Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RISE) of plants, especially crops. If this topic interests you, then here is a link - https://ripe.illinois.edu

Good luck!
Tom


On Sat, Mar 20, 2021 at 4:27 PM A. Ekergård <oakfarm78@gmail.com> wrote:

The first time I read about the bacteria Cupriavidus necator it still had the name Ralstonia eutropha (my source that those are the same bacteria is wikipedia), so on this site I searched on both but didn't find what I was looking for. To just cut and paste something I wrote in another context (very basic, you can skip it if you know anything about it already). One (there are several) interesting features of C. necator is that it can take energy from, and live on, hydrogen. This means that you can use solar energy to divide water into hydrogen and oxygen and feed the bacteria with it. The point is that solar cells are much more efficient than photosynthesis. Plants use only ~ 1% of all solar energy that hits their leaves. Using solar cells and bacteria that eat hydrogen is both in theory and in practice a more efficient method of producing a biomass than photosynthesis is.

So yeah, that's my understanding of those types of bacterias. And my question is if anyone has, or if it's theoretically possible, to build a low tech incubator for C. necator? Like water, with some nutrients, as a growth medium in a water tank or pipes with an airstone for aquariums to deliver hydrogen gas?

In the simplest form this should just be a method to produce biomass - I guess one  could make compost from it and use it for soil improvement and carbon sink. Then the follow up question is, how do one harvest bacteria? And of course I can fantasize about taking one step more, use the bacteria to produce nutrition for other organisms. Like there's they who do research on lab grown wood. In vitro wood grown with sugar from hydrogen feed C. necator¸ should be more efficient than ordinary trees and save the forests.


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