Scientists say the slime in your dishwasher could unlock a solution to global warming

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — Scientists have scoured the depths of the ocean and outer space for microbes to help slow global warming. They’re now looking at a new and unlikely place —  inside your home.

A group called the Two Frontiers Project (2FP) — funded by biotech company Seed Health — is asking people in the United States to look for “weird microbial growth” at home, in a quest to find the next microorganism that could suck planet-heating carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air or help break down environmental pollutants.

Extremophile microbes thrive in harsh environments and develop unique properties, which can be harnessed by the biotech industry and used in climate solutions, said Braden Tierney, the executive director of 2FP.

Though microbes live on every home surface, the group is especially interested in those that live in more extreme environments, including places with high temperatures such as dishwashers, air conditioners, microwaves, solar panels, hot water heaters and shower heads.

“These environments, though common, mimic the extreme conditions found in nature,” Tierney told CNN. “They reflect environmental changes that our planet may face in the future — including rising temperatures, heightened radiation, and increased acidification of oceans and soils”

The team hopes to discover microbes inside homes that may have the same carbon-absorbing qualities as some found in nature.

In 2022, off the Italian island of Vulcano, where carbon dioxide bubbles up from volcanic vents on the seabed, a 2FP team found a novel cyanobacterium — an aquatic organism able to make its own food — they say can absorb CO2 more efficiently than any other known microbe.

Volunteers who sign up to the “Extremophile Campaign” will be asked to take photos of any microbial growth around their home — “think slime, crusty mats, stringy growth,” the project’s website prompts — and answer questions about what they see.

“Unusual colors, smells, textures, and other data” can help scientists identify areas of interest, Tierney said. If they want to explore anything further, they will send a DNA sampling kit for volunteers to use and mail back to them. These results will be added to an open-sourced database of extremophile microbes.

“It’s a very interesting alternative to get access to microbes with capabilities … that aren’t yet known,” said Wilfried Weber, a scientific director at the Leibniz Institute for New Materials in Germany, who isn’t involved in the study. “I think there’s a very good chance that new microbes will be identified,” he told CNN.

The World Economic Forum named microbial carbon capture as one of the world’s top emerging technologies in a June report, but the technology is still in its infancy, with companies running pilot-scale programs to test commercial viability.

Carbon capture — which includes a range of technology from huge vacuum-type facilities able to suck climate pollution from the air to carbon-absorbing sponges — remains controversial as a climate solution.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said, in addition to dramatically reducing fossil fuels, the world will also have to remove large amounts of CO2 already in the atmosphere in order to avoid increasingly catastrophic climate change.

But critics warn it is expensive, unproven at scale and is being seized upon by the fossil fuel industry to keep extracting oil and gas, rather than switching to cleaner forms of energy, such as wind and solar.

There are advantages to using microbes, said Weber. Where classical carbon capture often aims to stores CO2 underground, with microbes “you have the potential to convert CO2 into high-value products (like) refined chemicals, cosmetics, fuel,” which could help offset the costs of the process, he said.

Still, this method requires additional energy “like sunlight … or some kind of chemical energy which could come from green hydrogen or organic waste streams,” he added. “That’s why these technologies make sense in places where such energy is available in a sustainable manner.”

The potential uses of extremophile microbes in biotech extend beyond carbon capture, according to Tierney. Microbial species, like those found in dishwashers, able to withstand high levels of detergent and salt, “could be harnessed for environmental cleanup in harsh conditions, such as removing heavy metals or petroleum from polluted sites,” he said.

Thermophiles, such as those found in microwaves, that can survive extreme heat, could “be used to study climate change adaptation and even to create clean energy sources, like hydrogen, which often require high temperatures for production,” he added.

Microbes “are a powerful tool in specific contexts, but they’re just one part of the larger solution,” Ara Katz, co-CEO of Seed Health, told CNN. “The urgency of the climate crisis means we must explore every possible approach.”

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