NSF Convergence Accelerator Track M: A new biomanufacturing process for making precipitated calcium carbonate and plant-based compounds that support human health

University Of Maryland Center For Environmental Sciences, Cambridge MD

Investigators

Abstract

This convergence research project will impact society at a national and global scale by developing and testing a new biomanufacturing process for making nutraceuticals (plant-based compounds that support human health) and an environmentally friendly precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) product that incorporates carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The new biomanufacturing process will use microscopic plants (microalgae) to transform waste streams of drinking water desalination plants into a source of these economically valuable products. Providing new sources of nutraceuticals will support public health and food security. The new process also could support industries that rely on PCC - including paper, plastics, rubber, ink, pharmaceuticals, and calcium fortified food and beverages - by providing sustainable and environmentally friendly PCC to these markets. By reusing desalination waste streams, this new biomanufacturing process would reduce pollution by transforming waste streams into product streams and may serve to offset the carbon costs associated with energy-intensive desalination processes, contributing to water security and environmental resilience. In addition, using the environmentally-friendly PCC in concrete for marine habitat restoration could shift these activities toward carbon neutrality and provide new materials needed to help counteract ecosystem degradation and species extinction. The project goal is to develop a new biomanufacturing process inspired by whiting events that uses brine from desalination plants and microalgae to create nutraceuticals from the algae biomass and PCC from the microalgal high-pH culture fluid and brine. Whiting events are natural phenomena that take place in lakes and oceans when calcium carbonate precipitates causing white, chalk-colored water. Specialized microalgae can create high-pH conditions in the fluid of their cultures that promote the formation of PCC when mixed with a source of calcium ions like brine. In the process, a portion of the mass of the PCC comes directly from atmospheric carbon dioxide that dissolves in the high-pH culture fluid and is subsequently precipitated - i.e., "captured" - in the calcium carbonate, creating a product called carbon-capture PCC. The vision for the Convergence Accelerator project is to build a prototype of our new biomanufacturing process at a desalination facility, then produce, test, and optimize nutraceutical and carbon-capture PCC products. In this Phase 1 planning grant, the objectives are to solidify the team and develop partnerships with industries and end-users, build and test a prototype of the new biomanufacturing process in the laboratory, characterize and refine the products with end-user input, and participate fully in the NSF Convergence Accelerator curriculum and meetings. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.