Luxurious and sustainable fragrances: Gucci develops perfumes based on waste carbon monoxide from metal factories
What if microbes could turn the pollution and stench of industrial waste into luxurious, sustainable fragrances?
It looks like alchemy. But thanks to LanzaTech’s carbon-captured ethanol, derived 100% from carbon monoxide waste from metal factories, you can wear it today.
The perfume, called Where My Heart Beats, was developed by Coty for Gucci’s The Alchemists Garden Collection. The floral aromas of peony and violet are far from its chimney origins.
It’s a whiff of the net zero future. I’m thrilled to hear about it from LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren at this year’s SynBioBeta conference.
Climate change is already having widespread negative effects that will only continue to intensify if we do not rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero.
Among a number of critical changes needed, the report cites carbon capture technology as one way to help us get there.
Many companies, including major oil companies, are looking into the matter. However, critics say this simply gives a green sheen to the status quo, while fossil fuels continue to be mined in earnest.
But LanzaTech says we have enough aboveground carbon to produce everything we need.
The carbon doesn’t have to come from oil and natural gas. Instead, we can recycle it.
Meet LanzaTech’s carbon-munching bacteria
Many industrial processes produce carbon monoxide as a waste product. Metal production, mining and food production to name a few.
LanzaTech uses a particular microbe,Autoethanogenic Clostridium, which lives on carbon monoxide gas and converts it into ethanol. Pure alcohol.
Already operating three large facilities and with demonstration sites and more due to open this year, LanzaTech works with global partners to produce carbon-captured ethanol on an industrial scale.
Our microbes selectively extract the carbon molecules found in emissions and pollution and turn those carbon molecules into ethanol, Holmgren explains. What was once pollution is regenerated into a molecule ready to enter numerous value chains, such as conversion into polyester or jet fuel.
In the case of perfume, ethanol itself is formulated with fragrance oils to improve texture and speed evaporation when applied to the skin.
Perfume from Coty and Gucci is a recent addition to a large portfolio of applications. Hot on the trail was H&M, which just launched a new collection of workout wear made with LanzaTech ethanol-derived polyester.
That’s a timely action, considering that the fashion industry contributes a whopping 10% of greenhouse gas emissions.
LanzaTech’s ethanol, produced using a continuous closed-loop process that recycles water, also makes up for the water that would normally be used in its traditional production for use in perfumes.
So now you can keep fit and smell good afterwards, all while doing a little bit for carbon neutrality and sustainability.
Don’t waste, don’t want
LanzaTech is part of a growing ecosystem of carbon recycling companies.
Air Company and Twelve, for example, use electrolysis to convert carbon dioxide into useful chemicals usually derived from petroleum.
Then there’s Newlight, which converts landfill methane into a liquid product which is then fed to microbes that produce PHB, a natural polymer that can be used to make biodegradable plastic.
They all see what carbon recycling is worth, tapping into markets with a combined value of over a trillion dollars.
LanzaTech’s ethanol alone targets an $85 billion market. Its spinoff LanzaJet uses ethanol to make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which first took to the air on a Virgin Atlantic plane in 2018, eating into a market growing at more than double that value.
I believe sustainable aviation fuel is a key lever in reducing the carbon footprint of air travel, Holmgren says. SAF can be used with existing commercial aircraft, so this drop-in does not require an entire system redesign to reduce the climate impact of air travel.
The LanzaJets Freedom Pines Fuels plant in Soperton, Georgia is expected to be completed this year and will double US production of SAF. It will soon enter India, where LanzaJet will produce cleaner aviation fuel at the Indian Oils Panipat refinery.
Flexible and scalable
While it will be difficult in the short term for carbon recycling to compete with the scale of the petrochemical industry, there is tremendous value in LanzaTech’s modularity.
The company’s model can be adapted to various types of carbon waste. Whatever the feedstock, be it industrial waste or biomass, it is possible to use the same bioreactor, directly at the source.
Furthermore, thanks to synthetic biology and a new generation of LanzaTech microbes, solvents such as isopropanol and acetone are being added to the portfolio of useful chemicals and materials that can be produced.
We’re doubling down on the commercial deployment of our technology, Holmgren says. We have three commercial rigs in operation and three more are expected to come online by the end of the year.
The more facilities we can build, the greater our ability to capture carbon emissions and meet the scale needed to decarbonise some of the hardest industries to abate.
John Cumbers is the founder and CEO of SynBioBeta, the leading community of innovators, investors, engineers and thinkers who share a passion for using synthetic biology to build a better, more sustainable universe. He is an operating partner and investor at the hard tech investment fund Data Collective and a former bioengineer at NASA. Follow him on Twitter@johncumbersAND@SynBioBeta
A version of this article was originally posted on Forbes and has been reposted here with permission. Any republication should credit the original author and provide links to both the GLP and the original article.