I am not an expert in traditional fermentation but I believe presence of contaminants depends on the crop, the strain of yeast present during the process, and conditions. So basically it can vary a lot.

Methanol and other byproducts do vary based on strains, conditions, etc. Generally, methanol is not an issue in things like wine because it's not produced in large enough quantities, even when conditions are poor. A treatment for methanol poisoning is actually ethanol (and likely some NAC). Only when distilling is methanol concentrated enough to cause problems. When done correctly, the distillation process separates the methanol from the other distillates at specific temperatures. Usually the heads and tails of a distillation run are thrown away. I believe it's the head that has the lions share of methanol.

I haven't read the link yet, but did not expect synthetic alcohol to be used for food and beverages.

I was surprised at how widespread it is.

We ferment CO2 + H2 rather than syngas (CO / CO + H2 / CO + H2 + CO2) but yes gas fermentation is not new technology.

Like traditional chemical processes which use metal catalysts, superior catalyst design improves the performance and ultimately the economics of the process.

Edit: I should have mentioned that it's not just the catalyst that has been improved, the design of the process itself has been improved. So upstream (gasification) and the design of the bioreactor also impact how well the process works.

Thank you.

Thank you for spending your time doing something valuable for the planet!

We are building the frameworks so that we will be able to take advantage of this but haven't yet. Can message me via the webform on our website? I would love to learn more about HPC, my understanding is limited.

From my understanding, OER occurs when splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen and can happen in biological and electrochemical systems. In the former plants use energy from sunlight to extract the electrons from water whereas in the latter, energy from electricity is used. In our process we use hydrogen that is oroduced elsewhere, it isn't part of our technology so we don't run into this issue.

my apologies this was intended to be a reply to the thread on https://www.sunhydrogen.com/technology. Sorry for the confusion!

Multiple solutions are needed to address climate change and CCU is just one of many levers we can use to decarbonise our industries. Sure CCU isn't as direct as DAC, but coupling CCU with biogenic sources of CO2 can create a carbon negative process if the product doesn't degrade. Solvents may not fit the bill for storing carbon for centuries, but plastics do.

The more immediate impact for CCU is the emissions reduction achieved via displacement of fossil derived solvents.

How does CCU via plants compare with CCU via your product?

I would describe hydrogen as an energy carrier rather than an energy source. Hydrogen is always made from something else, and the energy is either provided by that something else, or indirectly from another source, or a combination of both.

If you use an electrolyser to make hydrogen from water, your energy source is actually the electricity used to drive that reaction. The energy is stored as hydrogen gas.

Large bodies of water are great passive systems to capture CO2. For the outdoors, and if using sunlight is the energy source, algae and seaweed are definitely great candidates for capturing CO2.

Unfortunately your idea wouldn't work for our microorganisms as it is anaerobic, so it would die if exposed to air. But I like your idea for using sunlight to improve the growing conditions of algae + using automation for harvesting!

You're absolutely right regarding enthalpy and thanks for fixing the typos. I am still trying to find the best way to communicate what we are doing.

> I am still trying to find the best way to communicate what we are doing.

Hah.. yeah.. I like to remain anonymous, so it's difficult to discuss my own background and experience directly, but I fully get what you mean.

I've stood in front of conferences at places like AIChE and in front of the upper-staff at some of the world's largest companies and delivered talks on topics that I consider to be the basics of this field, and there seemed to be surprisingly superficial comprehension. It was weird, and communication seemed like a huge barrier.

A lot of work in this field may be more social in getting folks to accept and support stuff.

I definitely underappreciated how important communication is.

Short answer is no. The real value in our solution is going from C1 compounds like CO2 to C2 or C3 or longer chain compounds. This is the real difficulty. Methanol is still a C1 compound. Biology could do it, but it's not what it excels at.

Maersk has commissioned 8 ships to run on methanol. For context, Maersk owns 550 ships. Gives you an idea of the size of the transportation fuel problem.