Development of an optimized microbial strain for direct conversion of CO2 into biomass for feed production

Production of salmon in Norway is heavily connected to soy-driven deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest.The Amazon is vital to the Earth's recycling of carbon storing tremendous amounts of this element. Much of the Amazon nears tipping point of switching from rainforest to savannah. What is even more alarming is that the production of protein for salmon feed should be significantly ramped up to accommodate the growth of aquaculture.The time to act is now. Gas2Feed is developing a process for production of protein fully independent of geographies, climate and weather conditions. The process is confirmed to have the lowest carbon footprint among all known protein sources. It makes use of biotechnology as as one of the pillars in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The exotic microbes grown in the bioreactor consume elements of water and air. So called knallgas bacteria grow on hydrogen, oxygen and CO2 as the main feedstocks. The resulting biomass is rich in protein and by composition is an excellent source of protein for salmon. The Feedora project is involves the design and construction of of an adapted bacterial strain that is optimised for the making of nutritional proteins. A successful strain will be scaled in the Gas 2 Feed pilot facility developed in the RCN sponsored project SCoFeed.

The primary innovation of the proposed Feedora project represents an improved process for salmon feed production by developing an optimized strain of Cupravidus necator as a cell factory for high-protein biomass. This bacterium is known for its vast metabolic versatility, including the direct conversion of CO2 and hydrogen into biomass. Presently C. necator growth is associated with accumulation of intracellular granules of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), reducing the overall nutritional value of the produced microbial biomass and its application as a fish feed due to the low digestibility of PHB. The project aims to create a PHB-negative strain capable of utilizing CO2 side streams to produce biomass with high protein content, hence converting CO2 into high-quality feed ingredients. Decreasing the PHB content will increase the efficiency of the entire value chain by optimising the biomass yield on CO2 and H2. From this optimised yield follows more efficient, cheaper and more sustainable feed, and subsequently food, production. The altered production chain converting CO2 into feed ingredients will have a reduced impact on the environment compared to current feed production, as it does not only contribute to reduction in greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions, but will also aim at developing a process with more efficient CO2 and energy conversion, and hence increase efficiency in land and energy utilization.