Hydrogen oxidising bacteria for production of single‐cell protein and other food and feed ingredients
Bart Pander, Zahara Mortimer, Craig Woods, Callum McGregor, Andrew W. Dempster, Lisa Thomas, Joshua C. L. Maliepaard, Robert Mansfield, Peter Rowe, Preben Krabben
Abstract
Using hydrogen oxidising bacteria to produce protein and other food and feed ingredients is a form of industrial biotechnology that is gaining traction. The technology fixes carbon dioxide into products without the light requirements of agriculture and biotech that rely on primary producers such as plants and algae while promising higher growth rates, drastically less land, fresh water, and mineral requirements. The significant body of scientific knowledge on hydrogen oxidising bacteria continues to grow and genetic engineering tools are well developed for specific species. The scale-up success of other types of gas- fermentation using carbon monoxide or methane has paved the way for scale-up of a process that uses a mix of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide to produce bacteria as a food and feed ingredients in a highly sustainable fashion.