News > Microbes convert industrial waste gases into commodity chemicals

Microbes convert industrial waste gases into commodity chemicals

Chemicals cost more than just money: Today, petrochemical production spews out nearly 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Now, researchers have taken an important step to vastly reduce that footprint, by using bacteria and waste gases from steel plants, rather than petroleum, as the starting ingredient for dozens of commodity chemicals.

In June 2018, LanzaTech opened the first production plant that uses the bacterium to make ethanol from a steel mill's waste gas (a mix of mostly CO, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen gas), which would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere.