LanzaTech has been awarded a $4 million grant by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). LanzaTech and its partners, The City College of New York (CUNY), Louisiana State University (LSU) and Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech) will focus on reducing waste methane emissions from remote oil wells, coal seam and coal mine gases as well as landfill biogas. Many of these sources are simply flared, emitted or vented, resulting in significant greenhouse gas emissions.

The goal of the research is to increase the throughput, or intensity, of the LanzaTech bioreactor so that it can produce fuels and chemicals more efficiently, economically and at a smaller scale. The project will combine LanzaTech’s expertise in gas fermentation and reactor design with experimental reactor design expertise at the CUNY Energy Institute, and reactor modeling capabilities at LSU. LanzaTech and Michigan Tech will validate the economic and life cycle analysis impacts of this innovative technology as compared to the current state of the art.