Next Gen Foods from Air, Carbon dioxide, Electricity & Extremophiles
Air-based Foods
Recent innovation trend to achieve sustainable food production system is Air-based foods, inspired by 5 decade old NASA experiment. So, what are Air-based foods? Air-based foods are made using air, carbon dioxide or electricity as one of the substrate. In most of the cases, fermentation or catalytic reactions could be major unit operation. Generally, carbon dioxide is used as source of carbon, whereas for energy supply either hydrogen or electricity could be used. Traditionally, carbon dioxide could be captured from atmosphere using Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Moreover, new methods like Direct Air Capture (DAC) are also being developed.
Discovery of air-based foods was first published by NASA in 1967, where they reported that hydrogenotrophs, microbes that can metabolise hydrogen as source of energy and convert carbon dioxide and air into a physical protein. Simply put together, this process is similar to making wine or beer, where yeast is used to convert sugars into alcohol. For air-based foods production, instead of yeast, extremophiles are used to convert air, carbon dioxide and electricity to protein rich foods.
With ever growing population and climate change concerns around the globe, there will be demand for sustainable food production processes to fulfil optimum nutrition. Air-based foods majorly produce nutritious protein rich ingredients using primarily air, carbon dioxide and electricity. It produces high value food ingredients using minimum resources (land, water and raw materials), thus making it more sustainable compared to contemporary food production processes. In current scenario, technology is still at infant stage, so the cost of commercial development could be high, safety aspect of food made from extremophiles needs to be validated and consumer awareness of such technologies is limited.
Air based foods are being developed on model to achieve circular carbon economy, and assist in meeting food demands of growing population.
After more than 50 years of its discovery, this technology is gaining momentum in academic research and start-up ecosystem, to mass produce food using air, water, carbon dioxide and electricity. In this article, five such start-ups are outlined with respect to their background, aim and recent developments.
Start-ups Developing Next Gen Air-based Foods
Solar Foods
Solar foods is producing protein ingredient, Solein — composed of 65–76% protein. Company believes Solein is made using process that is efficient in reducing greenhouse gas emission, land and water use by 5, 60 and 100 times, respectively. It is spin-out of research centres of VTT & LUT University in Finland. Previously, both of these research centres have collaborated on initiative ‘Neocarbon Food — Food from Electricity’. Details of this project and principle mechanism of this technology are highlighted in this video.
Air Protein
Air Protein in collaboration with Kiverdi is working on meat alternative protein rich flours. Air Protein and Kiverdi both companies are headed by Dr. Lisa Dyson. In below YouTube video Dr. Lisa Dyson talks about important study of NASA and future prospects of Air Protein in detail.
Sustainable Bioproducts
Sustainable Bioproducts is based out of Chicago and uses filamentous fungus named ‘MK7’ and found in volcanic hot springs at Yellowstone National Park, US. MK7 is an aerobic, so grows on air and specific nutrient medium. Company claims, with their novel fermentation process, MK7 can produce protein with all 20 amino acids including 9 essential ones. This protein also contains heme (flavor protein of meat), thus producing meat alternative would be easier compared to using plant proteins.
Air Co.
This company has claimed to have developed first carbon negative vodka (removes 1 pound carbon per bottle from atmosphere) using solar power and carbon dioxide from air. Unlike other air-based foods mentioned above, this vodka is not made using fermentation, inventors say, it is made by mixing carbon dioxide, water and renewable electricity over specific catalyst which is proprietary to the company. Vodka bottle is currently available only in New York for $65.
NovoNutrients
NovoNutrients uses bacterial fermentation to manufacture aquaculture feed with 68% protein. The bacteria used for this process feeds on carbon dioxide from industrial waste stream for carbon and on hydrogen for its energy requirement.
Although these start-up companies are at infant stages of their development, they are showing promise to build a sustainable future where nutritious food is made using air, carbon dioxide, electricity and extremophiles.
For next decade, it will be interesting to see how they approach large scale manufacturing and produce commercially available food for ever growing population using same technology identified to mankind 5 decades ago.
