Life Cycle Assessment of Microbial Electrosynthesis for Commercial Product Generation

Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) uses microbes and electricity to convert CO2 high-grade chemicals alleviating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Little is known on the environmental loads associated with scale-up of technology. Initially, MES impacts synthesizing acetic, formic, or propionic acids, methanol, ethanol were assessed using GaBi LCA software, produced 60% from fossil fuels. The results show that formic acid production had lowest impact in all eco-indicators due comparatively low energy requirements its reactor rectification unit. Second, three different methods compared MES. Hydrolysis methyl formate, main conventional method was shown be less environmentally harmful than other utilizing technologies analyzed when used generated fuels except for climate change. Producing renewable sources (hydro, biogas, wind, photovoltaic) made able mitigate change negative environment others. Synthesis products through wind could provide considerable benefits should considered industrially applied.