Skokie biotech company uses bacteria to recycle carbon emissions from industrial pollution

SKOKIE, Ill. (WLS) -- A biotech company in north suburban Skokie is hoping to change industrial pollution by capturing carbon emissions and transforming them into usable products by using billions of bacteria.

LanzaTech labs in Skokie has 100 different stations testing different methods to meet a growing need to capture carbon on an industrial scale.

"We want it so every child in the world can pick up a crayon and color the sky and have that crayon that they pick is blue, right, and today that's not the reality for every kid around the world," said Chief Science Officer Zara Summers.

Large scale bioreactors are installed at steel mills and oil and gas refineries around the world, piping carbon emissions directly to the bacteria, which in turn grow and give up usable raw material.

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"It's essentially like bolting on a brewery to an industrial site, but instead of eating sugar and making ethanol, our bacteria eat carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen and make ethanol from those," Summers explained.

Summers said with just six large scale reactors installed in China, India and Europe, LanzaTech has stopped 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere.

"The climate, I mean, it's in crisis mode," Summers said. "Whether people wanna believe it or not, it is, and being part of something that we actually see a path to a solution, where we can actually make a difference, that is really inspiring."