LanzaTech awarded for waste CO2 conversion

LanzaTech Global, Inc., the carbon recycling company transforming waste carbon into sustainable fuels, chemicals, materials, and protein, has been awarded $3 million by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), as part of a broader $29 million investment program to advance its carbon management priorities.

LanzaTech’s Project ADAPT was selected to address FECM’s priority of converting carbon dioxide (CO₂) into environmentally responsible and economically valuable products.

LanzaTech’s Project ADAPT builds upon the Company’s existing capabilities of using CO₂ as a feedstock to produce isopropanol at a pilot scale and aims to advance the process and platform with the following key focus areas:

1. Versatility in Feedstock Use: Enhancing the platform’s ability to process a range of gas mixes with CO₂
2. Microbial Strain Optimization: Employing advanced gene-editing techniques to develop tailored microbial production strains for making isopropanol and other prevalent chemicals
3. Cost and Efficiency Improvements: Refining the end-to-end process to be more cost-effective, efficient, and more robust

Isopropanol is a common alcohol used in an array of everyday products such as cleaning agents and is also a precursor to the propylene value chain. Propylene, which is a building block for packaging, medical supplies, automotive products, among many other applications, has a thriving demand market that is projected to approach $150 billion and 180 million tons by 2030. Importantly, isopropanol production has the ability to achieve greenhouse gas savings of over 200% when produced from recycled CO₂ instead of fossil carbon, and a non-fossil commercial production pathway does not exist today.

Project ADAPT will primarily be funded by the FECM investment of $3 million and includes a Company funded cost share portion of approximately $0.8 million, totaling an estimated project cost of $3.8 million. Revenue and costs related to this project will be reported as Joint Development Agreement and Contract Research results for LanzaTech, and the majority of revenue is expected to be received and benefit financial results in 2025 and 2026.