Chaeho Im

Chaeho Im is a PhD student in the division of Industrial Biotechnology. The topic of Chaeho’s PhD thesis is gene regulation in acetogens, during syngas fermentation or when microbes are grown in a bioelectrochemical system.

Syngas coming from industrial waste gas, steel mill flue gas, and incomplete biomass combustion involves mainly hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. Certain microbes can make valuable chemicals from syngas, but the syngas fermentation suffers from very low carbon recovery. Chaeho wants to increase carbon recovery efficiency of syngas fermentation by applying a bioelectrochemical system which supplies external electrons to reduce the oxidized form of carbon. The study contributes to reducing greenhouse gas emission and harvesting wasted energy from industry.