Electric protein reactors make food out of carbon dioxide – FREE FOOD

TAKE one serve of carbon dioxide. Apply high voltage. Wait a few weeks … and enjoy a meal of single-cell protein. It may not be a culinary delight, but it could feed our future.

The creation of artificial food out of thin air – with a few added microbes – is the result of a study by research groups in Finland.

And they say the Food from Electricity program is 10-times more energy efficient than the photosynthesis of plants.

Such protein powder is not about to garnish our plates.

But it may soon be reducing the strain on our crops by providing an alternative source of fodder for animal feeds.

Ultimately, protein ‘reactors’ have the potential to create the building blocks of meals aboard long-duration space flights and as a rapid-response counters to famine.

“In the long term, protein created with electricity is meant to be used in cooking and products as it is,” says Juha-Pekka Pitkänen, principal scientist at VTT. “The mixture is very nutritious, with more than 50 per cent protein and 25 per cent carbohydrates. The rest is fats and nucleic acids.”

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The protein’s greatest selling point is in its ingredients.

Sunlight. And carbon dioxide.

“In practice, all the raw materials are available from the air,” Pitkänen says. “In the future, the (solar powered) technology can be transported to, for instance, deserts and other areas facing famine. One possible alternative is a home reactor, a type of domestic appliance that the consumer can use to produce the needed protein.”

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