Engineering carbonic anhydrase for industrial carbon sequestration 

As the atmospheric amount of CO2 nears 1 metric teraton, it has become imperative to design solutions for removal of CO2 on the gigaton scale to mitigate the looming effects of global warming. The project proposes to develop and use a cell-free protein synthesis platform for high-throughput enzyme engineering of carbonic anhydrase functionality to have both solvent/temperature stability along with catalytic activity at atmospheric levels of CO2. Upon identification of ultra-stable enzymes that meet target metrics, the team aims to demonstrate activity in small pilot-scale reactors and move into additional stages of development.