MIT Chemists Focus on Making Microbial Fertilizers Revolutionize Agriculture

Chemical fertilizer production makes up roughly 1.5% of greenhouse-gas emissions produced worldwide. These fertilizers are manufactured via an energy-intensive process that uses very high pressure to combine hydrogen and nitrogen from the air to make ammonia. Chemists from MIT hope to help decrease this carbon footprint by replacing some fertilizer with bacteria, as the latter is a more sustainable source.

Bacteria can convert nitrogen gas to ammonia, which will not only offer plants the nutrients they need but also protect them from pests and regenerate soil. However, the bacteria are sensitive to humidity and heat, which makes it hard to manufacture them on a large scale and ship to farms globally. To overcome this challenge, chemical engineers at MIT have developed a metal-organic coating that protects cells of bacteria from damage, without hindering their function or growth.

The coating contains a polyphenol and a metal that can assemble itself into a protective shell. Polyphenols, which are found in plants, are regarded as safe by the FDA while the metals used, including manganese, iron, zinc and aluminum, are also considered safe.

For their research, the investigators developed 12 different metal-phenol networks and encapsulated a nitrogen-fixing bacterium that protects plants from harmful fungi. They determined that all coatings protected the bacteria from humidity of up to 48% and temperatures of up to 50^oC. In addition to this, the coatings also kept the bacteria alive during the freeze-drying process.

Additionally, the researchers determined that the coated bacteria significantly enhanced the germination rate of various seeds, including vegetables such as bok choy and corn.  The study’s senior author, assistant professor Ariel Furst, stated that the coating would make it easier for farmers to deploy the microbial fertilizers. She added that the coating also protected the bacteria from the drying process and, given that they could withstand heat, there was no need for cold storage.

Furst’s company, Seia Bio, is focused on commercializing the coated bacteria for use in regenerative agriculture. Based on the low costs incurred during the manufacturing process, she hopes the fertilizer will be accessible to small-scale farmers.

The study findings were reported in the “Journal of the American Chemical Society Au.”

The study was funded by the MIT Deshpande Center, the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab at MIT, and a National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences Core Center Grant, among others.

As these microbial fertilizers go through the development process and await commercialization, farmers can continue using the current conventional options offered by enterprises such as Compass Minerals International Inc. (NYSE: CMP).

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