Edmonton researchers 'making trees from scratch' with innovative new carbon capture p

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Edmonton researchers 'making trees from scratch' with innovative new carbon capture process
By Dave Lazzarino
First posted: Monday, May 23, 2016 07:32 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, May 23, 2016 11:27 PM EDT
A carbon-capturing process being developed by a group of Edmonton researchers could land them big money and international fame. The idea? Copying what plants do.

“Nature itself can be the best teacher to learn from,” said Ehsan Jenab, project lead for the carbon transformation project at Edmonton’s Ingenuity Lab, a science and innovation lab funded by the Sherwood Park-based Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation.

The project has a team of researchers working to artificially produce the carbon sequestering properties of plants by creating the individual steps of the carbon cycle and then putting them together in a bio-reactor.

In essence, they’re making trees from scratch.

“If you look at the leaf, it can be a really tiny energy factory,” Jenab said. “All of these processes are happening in the plant cells.”

The chloroplasts, he said, are the main part of that factory, converting CO2 into intermediate sugars using 13 different enzymes during the carbon cycle.

By mimicking the processes — including creating the individual enzymes through fermentation — the team hopes to be able to trap carbon dioxide, using light as an input energy source, and produce byproducts like nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide.

It’s a mouthful to say but, along with hydrogen, it combines to NADH, a widely-used ingredient in the pharmaceutical industry.

“All of these sugar phosphates are the initial reactants for producing value-added chemicals,” said Jenab. “There is a huge market demand for that.”

As in plants, some of the other byproducts are recycled back into the initial reactions and make the entire process far more efficient, something Jenab says makes the project enticing to governments looking to increase energy efficiency as global populations and energy use continue to rise.

The team is in the stage of developing the enzymes and incorporating them into the larger system but they hope to be ready to demonstrate it for consideration at the first stage of the Carbon XPrize competition in 2017.

If they manage to move past the first two rounds, it could mean $2.5 million in prize money and if they win the entire thing another $7.5 million could be up for grabs. But Jenab says the exposure to industry could be even more lucrative.

The lab, which has a number of other projects on the go, is also working on a 4-D printer, which promises to use 3-D printing technology to create structures made of living biological material.

More information on the Ingenuity Lab and the XPrize can be found online.

dlazzarino@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/SUNDaveLazz
Edmonton researchers are working to artificially produce the carbon sequestering properties of plants by creating the individual steps of the carbon cycle and then putting them together in a bio-reactor.

Edmonton researchers 'making trees from scratch' with innovative new carbon capt
 

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Edmonton researchers 'making trees from scratch' with innovative new carbon capture process
By Dave Lazzarino
First posted: Monday, May 23, 2016 07:32 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, May 23, 2016 11:27 PM EDT
A carbon-capturing process being developed by a group of Edmonton researchers could land them big money and international fame. The idea? Copying what plants do.

“Nature itself can be the best teacher to learn from,” said Ehsan Jenab, project lead for the carbon transformation project at Edmonton’s Ingenuity Lab, a science and innovation lab funded by the Sherwood Park-based Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation.

The project has a team of researchers working to artificially produce the carbon sequestering properties of plants by creating the individual steps of the carbon cycle and then putting them together in a bio-reactor.

In essence, they’re making trees from scratch.

“If you look at the leaf, it can be a really tiny energy factory,” Jenab said. “All of these processes are happening in the plant cells.”

The chloroplasts, he said, are the main part of that factory, converting CO2 into intermediate sugars using 13 different enzymes during the carbon cycle.

By mimicking the processes — including creating the individual enzymes through fermentation — the team hopes to be able to trap carbon dioxide, using light as an input energy source, and produce byproducts like nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide.

It’s a mouthful to say but, along with hydrogen, it combines to NADH, a widely-used ingredient in the pharmaceutical industry.

“All of these sugar phosphates are the initial reactants for producing value-added chemicals,” said Jenab. “There is a huge market demand for that.”

As in plants, some of the other byproducts are recycled back into the initial reactions and make the entire process far more efficient, something Jenab says makes the project enticing to governments looking to increase energy efficiency as global populations and energy use continue to rise.

The team is in the stage of developing the enzymes and incorporating them into the larger system but they hope to be ready to demonstrate it for consideration at the first stage of the Carbon XPrize competition in 2017.

If they manage to move past the first two rounds, it could mean $2.5 million in prize money and if they win the entire thing another $7.5 million could be up for grabs. But Jenab says the exposure to industry could be even more lucrative.

The lab, which has a number of other projects on the go, is also working on a 4-D printer, which promises to use 3-D printing technology to create structures made of living biological material.

More information on the Ingenuity Lab and the XPrize can be found online.

dlazzarino@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/SUNDaveLazz
Edmonton researchers are working to artificially produce the carbon sequestering properties of plants by creating the individual steps of the carbon cycle and then putting them together in a bio-reactor.

Edmonton researchers 'making trees from scratch' with innovative new carbon capt

Plant a bunch of these in every city as part of the infrastructure. Problem solved.

finally, Some environmental people with a brain