LanzaTech captures and reuses carbon, transforming industrial waste products into resources through a unique gas fermentation technology.
LanzaTech has developed a biological process in which microbes convert industrial waste gases into fuel and chemical products. The company uses an ancient strain of bacteria that evolved living around hydrothermal vents, which produce a similar concoction of gases to those from today’s industry. Through a natural fermentation process, these bacteria grow to produce bioethanol and chemical products.
The solution mitigates carbon emissions from industry and produces low-carbon fuels without adversely impacting food production. In Shanghai, China’s largest steel conglomerate, Baosteel, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have constructed a plant using LanzaTech’s gas fermentation technology for the production of fuel ethanol from steel mill waste gases.
Technology can change our current paradigm around the production of fuels, and the production of chemicals.
Dr. Sean Simpson – CEO of LanzaTech.
Why you should care
Producing first generation biofuels often involved using land that would have otherwise been used for crops. It has been estimated that using US croplands for biofuels actually increased greenhouse gases through emissions associated with land use change. Producing advanced biofuels using the LanzaTech process does not require extra land or feed.
How the Global Goals are addressed
LanzaTech’s process can generate biofuel for road and aviation vehicles from industrial waste gases. In the process, LanzaTech helps reducing air pollution.
Industry, innovation and infrastructure
Sixty-five percent of steel mills worldwide use technology that could be retrofitted to use the LanzaTech process, which translates to 30 billion gallons of ethanol.
Climate action
Life-cycle analysis by E4Tech has shown a 76% reduction in greenhouse gases produced from Lanza’s steel mill to ethanol process compared to conventional petroleum-based gasoline.
About LanzaTech
LanzaTech recycles carbon emissions to make fuels and chemicals, improving air quality and promoting a circular economy.
LanzaTech
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Global Goals addressed
