Turning Waste Carbon into High-Value Products with David Ortega of Phase Biolabs

After COP26, all nations recognise that Carbon waste must be reduced but we still derive many high-value chemicals and products from petrochemicals - a carbon source locked away underground for millennia and now polluting our atmosphere as waste Carbon. Atmospheric CO2 is a well known driver of global climate change and some 50 billion tons of CO2 are emitted.

As we transition to low-carbon economies, a solution that tackles both reducing Carbon waste and replacing industrially important chemicals is required. This is exactly what Dr David Ortega, founder of Phase Biolabs in Bristol, UK, hopes to achieve using gas fermentation and synthetic biology.

In contrast to gas fermentation companies that use Carbon monoxide (CO) and Hydrogen in the form of syngas, Phase utilises microbes that consume CO2, which is more efficient than the CO process, to produce carbon-based compounds as byproducts. Phase is also genetically engineering these microbes to produce industrially relevant compounds by augmenting the natural pathways using CO2.

Phase Bio is supported by the University of Bristol, BrisSynBio, The Quantum Technology Enterprise Centre, the Synthetic Biology Research Centre Nottingham, and The Carbon Recycling Network.