Russia and China are developing unique technologies for producing protein from coal and natural gas. These projects continue Soviet scientific traditions, opening up new opportunities for the agro-industrial complex.
The idea is not new: back in the USSR, scientists discovered that special microorganisms are capable of converting hydrocarbons into nutritious protein. The technology involved feeding yeast and bacteria with methanol. In the 1980s, Soviet industry produced up to a million tons of such protein per year for animal feed, but this production was stopped in the next decade.
Today, interest in such biotechnologies has returned. Chinese researchers are successfully converting coal into feed protein. The process consists of two stages: first, methanol is obtained from coal, which then serves as a nutrient medium for special yeast cultures. Pilot production began in China in 2024, and in the near future it is planned to increase volumes to industrial scale.
In Russia, work is being carried out in several directions. In 2024, the Tatneft company launched a pilot plant in Tatarstan for the production of protein from methane. The pilot production capacity is 1 thousand tons per year. In the future, the enterprise will be able to produce up to 30 thousand tons of product annually for the needs of livestock farming and aquaculture.
As for the use of coal, Russian projects are still at the stage of scientific research. For example, scientists at Khakass State University have been working on creating feed additives based on brown coal since 2023. This three-year project has a serious raw material base. Brown coal reserves in Russia are huge and exceed 146 billion tons. Basic deposits concentrated in Siberia and the Far East. At current production levels, these reserves will last for more than a thousand years.
Thus, the revival of technologies for producing protein from non-traditional raw materials opens up significant prospects. It allows us to solve the issue of food supply for agriculture and gives a new impetus for the development of regions with large hydrocarbon reserves.
The material was prepared with the support of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science as part of the Decade of Science and Technology.
Source: @cdutek
Photo: vetandlife.ru
