Carbon Recycling with LanzaTech's Gas Fermentation Process

LanzaTech’s innovative commercial scale gas fermentation platform can capture and utilize CO2, H2 and CO for the production of fuels and chemicals. The ability of the fermentation platform to utilize gas mixtures of varying compositions enables the conversion of a diverse range of feedstocks, including waste gases from industrial sources (e.g. refineries and steel mills) and syngas generated from biomass or municipal solid waste.

Developing a robust process capable of handling the fluctuations present in waste gas streams requires piloting on live gas streams at the production site. LanzaTech has operated for greater than 100,000 hours on live gas at various pilot and demonstration units, resulting in commercialization of the gas fermentation process in 2018 with the startup of the Shougang LanzaTech plant in Caofeidian, China. Two other plants operating on industrial off-gases are under construction in Belgium (ArcelorMittal Gent, steel off-gas) and India (Indian Oil Company, refinery off-gas). Looking beyond industrial off-gas, gasification of municipal solid waste and conversion of syngas in gas fermentation offers an alternative pathway to recycling, where wastes which are not amenable to mechanical recycling can broken down and reformed into virgin materials.