Sustainability issue: Energy, Waste
Many cities have industrial hubs that generate significant CO2 emissions and pollute the urban environment. As we know, these CO2 emissions also contribute to climate change. Finding a sink for these emissions is extremely important for cities to address climate change and urban pollution.
- Photosynthetic Magic is a bacterial cell factory project that aims to leverage biotechnology to capture, store and re-use CO2 outputs. Cyanobacteria can take up CO2 from the atmosphere and directly convert it into useful products.
- More specifically, the Photosynthetic Magic team genetically modifies the bacteria to make them produce a valuable compound called fumarate.
- Fumarate can be used for numerous applications, including; a progenitor for biofuels, food additives and medicine.
- The team includes six students from Amsterdam, who are overseen by two professors. They also receive IT support from a Syrian refugee that is developing their website.
Article title: Your pollutant is our resource
Website name: Amsterdam Smart City
Article Link: https://amsterdamsmartcity.com/projects/co2-in-the-city-your-pollutant-is-our-resource#about
Company website link: http://2017.igem.org/Team:Amsterdam/Project
- City government
- Biofuel users
- Companies that use food additives
- Scale up the project by exploring its deployment and implementation in industry. In order to do this, the first step will be to establish partnerships around Amsterdam.
- Once partnerships are in place, quantify demand, production costs and design costs and begin deploying the technology.
- Work with other European innovation hubs and smart city programs to expand the deployment of the technology.