Industrial off-gases are volatile impurities and gases like carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are byproducts obtained in chemical processes. They are usually flared out or used for the production of electricity. New technologies are being developed utilizing the carbon in these off-gases to produce other raw materials.
The recent partnership between the German industrial venture BASF and American carbon recycling company LanzaTech resulted in the production of chemicals or raw materials from industrial off-gases. The company’s core technology is converting fermenting syngas to produce ethanol. The further collaboration resulted in the laboratory production of 1-octanol from syngas. LanzaTech came up with its unique innovative syngas fermentation, in which 1-octanol is produced from a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen with the help of special bacteria.
The advantages of this process include: the microorganisms are not susceptible to the composition of off-gas, so the ratio of carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide can be altered. The microorganisms are tolerant to many impurities, so the purity of the exhaust gases used is no matter.
1-octanol is industrially produced by the oligomerization of ethylene, which is then used to produce esters that are used in perfumes and cosmetics. Thus 1-octanol produced from the off-gases using fermentation can be considered as a sustainable product.
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