Public Funding for Cyanocapture Ltd

Industries producing over 25,000 T CO2/year represent ~40% of the total emissions of stationary installations in Europe and are currently subject to a carbon tax at ~€100/T CO2 under the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). These industries are desperately looking for affordable carbon capture technologies to reduce emissions, however, current prominently used direct air capture (DAC) is not commercially feasible at scale. CyanoCapture Ltd., the project lead, is an innovative SME aiming to develop a sustainable and cost-effective solution for point source carbon capture by combining novel photobioreactor processes and a fast-growing cyanobacterium, _Synechococcus_ sp. UTEX 3154 (Syn3154). Photosynthetic cyanobacteria are ubiquitous and account for 30-50% of environmental CO2 fixation. Cyanobacteria are naturally far more efficient than plants at capturing CO2 and hence are excellent candidates for scalable carbon capture. The cyanobacterium Syn3154 is a fast-growing, high biomass accumulating strain with a doubling time of less than 3 hours, with no need for external supplementation of vitamins for its growth -- meaning that it carries the potential to be an excellent candidate to enable mass-scale CO2 removal. The project partner UKBRC at the University of Edinburgh will develop a sustainable method for conversion of cyanobacteria biomass into stable biochar and evaluate applications such as agriculture, construction, sanitation, environmental management etc. that offer not only long-term carbon sequestration, but also additional economic and societal benefits. The proposed breakthrough solution enables affordable CO2 capture and has a strong potential to elevate the UK's position at the forefront of the global Net-Zero transition.

Globally, 40 billion tonnes of CO2 are emitted every year, which is the primary driver for anthropogenic climate change. CO2 removal and avoidance offer a plausible solution for climate change mitigation. However, the commercially available technologies to capture CO2 are highly energy intensive, chemical based (environmentally unfriendly and often toxic) and require further compression of CO2, which needs expensive storage and transportation infrastructure, rendering these processes unsustainable and economically unfeasible. Biobased carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) is a method of CO2 capture via biomass production using biological organisms - primarily photosynthetic organisms such as plants and microalgae including cyanobacteria. CyanoCapture Ltd., the project lead, is an innovative SME aiming to develop a sustainable and cost-effective solution for point source carbon capture by combining novel photobioreactor processes and improved cyanobacteria genetics. In this project, CyanoCapture is collaborating with the McCormick lab at the University of Edinburgh to jointly apply world-class genetic engineering strategies to i) understand and enhance CO2 fixation pathways for enhancing CO2 capturing efficiency and ii) transform the use of biobased CCUS for industrial CO2 capture and climate mitigation into a reality. Photosynthetic cyanobacteria are ubiquitous and account for 30-50% of environmental CO2 fixation. Cyanobacteria are naturally far more efficient than plants at capturing CO2 and hence are excellent candidates for scalable carbon capture. The cyanobacterium _Syn_3154 is a fast-growing, high biomass accumulating strain with a doubling time of less than 3 hours, with no need for external supplementation of vitamins for its growth -- meaning that it carries the potential to be an excellent candidate to enable mass-scale CO2 removal if we can engineer it to be optimised for taking CO2 from flue gas. In addition, it is highly genetically tractable and hence can be engineered as a competent microbial chassis for efficient conversion of CO2 to biomass and value-added chemicals that offer not only long-term carbon sequestration, but also additional economic and societal benefits. Our strategy to engineer Syn3154 to improve the CO2 fixation rate and deployment of technology for industrial scale capture at point source emissions has a strong potential to elevate the UK's position at the forefront of the global Net-Zero transition.

CyanoCapture's mission is to provide affordable carbon capture on an industrial scale by using photosynthetic cyanobacteria. The breakthrough technology enables 'true' carbon sequestration to become widely accessible to various emission sources such as power plants, steel and cement industries all over the world. The newly discovered strain (PCC 11901) proposed in this study is capable of taking CO2 directly from emission sites and rapidly convert it into a dense solid matter (biomass) that can be stored or utilised at low cost. Our vision is to become the first in the world to bring a scalable carbon capture technology to the market that has a cost below the £50/tonne CO2 mark. CyanoCapture is at Technological Readiness Level 4 - validation of proof-of-concept at the laboratory stage; having collected several months of carbon fixation assay data in PBRs mimicking outdoor light conditions. Our next step is to scale this to a larger 5m x 5m unit in an outdoor system using real flue gas to further validate the proven concept in situ. CyanoCapture will build up to four PBR units and evaluate novel operational processes to capture CO2 from a medium-scale emission unit in a farm in Chichester. Each PBR is a fully enclosed system: 5m x 5m x 0.5m transparent tarpaulin water tanks fitted with a gas inlet/outlet with electronic and manual control. The system will cultivate non-GM cyanobacterial strain, selected for its fast carbon sequestration potential.