Valorization of waste streams and C1 gases for sustainable food nutrients and value-added compounds production: Acetate as a promising intermediate

Abstract

Resource recovery from waste streams and C1 gaseous substrates (CO2, CO and CH4) are of extensive interest due to the insufficient utilization and threats to the environment. From a perspective of sustainability, valorization of waste streams and C1 gases into target energy-rich value-added products in a sustainable way offers tempting approaches for simultaneously alleviating the environmental problems and achieving a circular carbon economy, while it still suffers from the complicated compositions of feedstocks or the low solubility of gaseous feeds. Recently, a C2 feedstock-based biomanufacturing serving acetate as potential next-generation platform has received much attention, where different gaseous or cellulosic wastes are recycling into acetate and then be further processed into a wide range of valuable long-chain compounds. The different alternative waste-processing technologies that are being developed to generate acetate from various wastes or gaseous substrates are summarized, in which gas fermentation and electrochemical reduction from CO2 represent the most promising routes for achieving high acetate yield. The recent advances and innovations in metabolic engineering for acetate bioconversion into various bioproducts ranging from food nutrients to value-added compounds were then highlighted. The challenges and promising strategies to reinforce microbial acetate conversion were also proposed, which conferred a new horizon for future food and chemical manufacturing with reduced carbon footprint.