COSEC: Biogenic CO2 capture into Sustainable Energy Carriers - A novel photosynthetic and hydrogenotrophic CO2 fixation combined with waste nutrient upcycling for production of carbon negative energy carriers

COSEC

Project Summary

COSEC project aims to systematically tackle one of the main challenges within the bioenergy value chain by converting biogenic CO2 into renewable energy carriers, thereby addressing systemic issues. Rooted in extensive research and development focused on photosynthetic CO2 fixation by microalgae and cyanobacteria (biogenic gas pretreatment), the project focuses on transforming these biogenic feedstocks into sustainable liquid and gaseous energy carriers using innovative nature-based solutions coupled to bioenergy technologies. Emphasising affordability and robustness, COSEC will develop renewable H2-assisted processes to enhance these energy carriers with a paramount commitment to sustainability. The techno economic feasibility and sustainability of end-to-end processes will be optimised through the evaluation of multiple approaches to CO2 fixation and energy carrier upgrading. To validate our findings, we will implement a first-of-its-kind decentralised modular and scalable pilot plant, demonstrating its replicability through strategic partnerships within the energy industry.

This project is funded by European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101172

COSEC: Biogenic CO2 capture into Sustainable Energy Carriers - A novel photosynthetic and hydrogenotrophic CO2 fixation combined with waste nutrient upcycling for production of carbon negative energy carriers

Start and End Date

01.10.2024 - 30.09.2027

Research Group

Marine Biotechnology

Coordinating Entity

CyanoCapture

CCMAR Coordinators

Luísa Barreira

João Varela

Project reference

101172

Total Budget

3906925.00 €

CCMAR Budget

352062.50€

Website

Project Activities

CCMAR will participate in the following tasks:

Task 2.1. Optimise fixation of biogenic CO2 and residual nutrients into microalgae biomass (Leader: UAL, Participants: NECTON, CCMAR) (M1-M12).
CCMAR will proceed with isolation of natural strains with resistance to flue gas and waste streams that thrive in the ponds will be isolated. The isolation process will be carried out using plating on solid agar medium as well as by a process developed by the consortium that uses flow cytometry coupled with fluorescence activated cell sorting and the use of lipophilic solvatochromic dyes (Pereira et al, 2011). Desirable high lipid producing strains will be selected for further development in WP3.

Task 3.1. Strain development for improved resilience to flue gases and production of lipid rich biomass (Leader: CCMAR; Participants: CC) (M5-M21). The aim of this task is to leverage the ex-situ culture collection of microalgae and cyanobacteria strains (CCMAR and CC) with known ability to utilise the nutrients from waste streams and further develop these strains for resistance to flue gas toxicity with concomitant ability to accumulate high lipids. This task will be parallelly performed at CCMAR and CC, on microalgae and cyanobacteria strains, respectively. At least 10 promising strains (5 microalgae; 5 cyanobacteria) from the ex-situ collection will be used for adaptive evolution to improve their ability to grow in high concentrations of HTL and AD effluents (from WP4 and WP5) by gradual increase in effluent concentrations (in 5% increments from 10% to 30%).

Task 3.3. Validation and growth optimisation of selected/improved strains outdoors (Leader: NECTON; Participants: CCMAR) (M7-M24). The most promising strains - two from Task 3.1 (mutant strains) and two from Task 3.2 (natural strains) - will be cultivated in 300-L RWP outdoors at NECTON to ascertain their productivity and resilience under more relevant conditions. This validation will focus on the resilience of these strains to flue gas toxicity, their abilities to absorb nutrients from HTL and AD effluents, and their dominance over competing microalgal strains that may contaminate the cultures.

Task 6.3: Techno Economic Model (TEM) (Leader: CC; Participants: All partners) (M28-33). In this task, we will conduct a detailed techno economic analysis of various scenarios tested in the project to assess the economic viability of an integrated CO2 fixing solution at the point source, and further production of energy carriers from the fixed CO2.

Task 6.4: Sustainability assessment (Leader: RINA-C; Participants: All partners (M13-36). With the aim to achieve the overall carbon circularity, Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) will be developed for accurate monitoring & measurement of biogenic CO2 capture and for evaluating the economic impact of the entire value chain.