How about Acetinobacter spp.? According to the following paper, one such species (Acinetobacter sp. NIIST (Genbank JX467695)) can reduce perchlorate: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23872336/
“100mg/L of the compound was reduced completely in 48 h under anoxic condition.”
Acinetobacter is certainly one of the microbe species were are looking at for perchlorate reducing capabilities, in addition to Dechloromonas, Azospira, and some Pseudomonas. We are also evaluating microbes for their tolerance to perchlorate - for a first bioprocess, we may be able to make something without having to completely remove perchlorate. But for a perchlorate reduction bioprocess, we would want an anaerobe that could reduce perchlorate down to habitable level, like for plants to be able to grow in regolith soil.
Would you mind talking more about what the carbon source might be in the future? It seems like acetate accomplishes a lot of roles (food for the microbes, buffering, easy to make). Are there carbon sources that would make the bioreactor more efficient despite being harder to make?
Using a similar electrochemical approach, you could produce other soluble C1 or C2 molecules (methanol, formate, ethanol) from CO2. Or gas fermentation could be achieved with CO2 directly or converting it to methane or syngas. Another future option would be to use the biomass generated from one microbe as the feedstock for a subsequent bioprocess. This is all an effort to reduce having to bring any terrestrial carbon sources that make growth much easier (e.g. sugar feedstocks). The efficiency will depend on the organism/bioprocess and our hope is to engineer microbes that use these ISRU-derived carbon sources more efficiently!
How about Acetinobacter spp.? According to the following paper, one such species (Acinetobacter sp. NIIST (Genbank JX467695)) can reduce perchlorate: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23872336/
“100mg/L of the compound was reduced completely in 48 h under anoxic condition.”
Acinetobacter is certainly one of the microbe species were are looking at for perchlorate reducing capabilities, in addition to Dechloromonas, Azospira, and some Pseudomonas. We are also evaluating microbes for their tolerance to perchlorate - for a first bioprocess, we may be able to make something without having to completely remove perchlorate. But for a perchlorate reduction bioprocess, we would want an anaerobe that could reduce perchlorate down to habitable level, like for plants to be able to grow in regolith soil.
Would you mind talking more about what the carbon source might be in the future? It seems like acetate accomplishes a lot of roles (food for the microbes, buffering, easy to make). Are there carbon sources that would make the bioreactor more efficient despite being harder to make?
Using a similar electrochemical approach, you could produce other soluble C1 or C2 molecules (methanol, formate, ethanol) from CO2. Or gas fermentation could be achieved with CO2 directly or converting it to methane or syngas. Another future option would be to use the biomass generated from one microbe as the feedstock for a subsequent bioprocess. This is all an effort to reduce having to bring any terrestrial carbon sources that make growth much easier (e.g. sugar feedstocks). The efficiency will depend on the organism/bioprocess and our hope is to engineer microbes that use these ISRU-derived carbon sources more efficiently!