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Environmental Applications of Methanotrophs

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Methanotrophs

Part of the book series: Microbiology Monographs ((MICROMONO,volume 32))

Abstract

Methanotrophs are microorganisms that are able to utilize methane as the electron donor and carbon source. For long, methanotrophs have been widely studied for their application in environmental biotechnology , due mainly to the exclusive ownership of the unique enzymes that mediate oxidation of methane to methanol , namely the particulate methane monooxygenases (pMMO) and soluble methane monooxygenases (sMMO) . Utilizing these methane monooxygenases , methanotrophs are capable of co-oxidizing a broad range of organic pollutants including chlorinated ethenes . Thus, methanotrophs have long been studied and utilized as biocatalysts for in situ bioremediation of soil and aquatic environments contaminated with these xenobiotic compounds . Due to the growing concerns in anthropogenically induced climate change and global warming , methanotrophs have increasingly gained attention also for greenhouse gas mitigation purposes. Active methane removal using methanotrophic biofilters of diverse configurations have proven to be effective for treatments of gases with relatively high methane concentrations, e.g., landfill gases and animal husbandry tank exhausts. Furthermore, improving the atmospheric methane sink capability of agricultural soils has been one of the foremost foci of climate-smart soil research. This chapter provides an extensive overview of scientific and engineering breakthroughs geared towards practical applications of methanotroph biotechnology in managing impending environmental problems.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the C1 Gas Refinery Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), which is funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (grant number: NRF-2015-M3D3A1A01064881) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant number: HO6234/1-1) and the Leibniz Universität Hannover.

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  1. Institute for Microbiology, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Adrian Ho & Marcus A. Horn

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea

    Miye Kwon & Sukhwan Yoon

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  1. Adrian Ho
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Correspondence to Sukhwan Yoon .

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  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea (Republic of)

    Eun Yeol Lee

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Ho, A., Kwon, M., Horn, M.A., Yoon, S. (2019). Environmental Applications of Methanotrophs. In: Lee, E. (eds) Methanotrophs. Microbiology Monographs, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23261-0_8

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