Virginia Parparcen Grillet
MIT Department: Chemical Engineering
Faculty Mentor: Faculty Advisor: Prof. Ariel Furst
Research Supervisors: Swathi Penumutchu, Juliet Okorie
Undergraduate Institution: Lafayette College
Hometown: Panama City, Panama
Website: LinkedIn
Biography
Virginia Parparcén is a rising senior Chemical Engineering major at Lafayette College. She is committed to contributing to a sustainable future through research. At Lafayette, she conducts research in the green solvents field, where she aims to find and optimize new switchable hydrophilicity solvents. Previously, she was part of the Stanford SURF Program, where she did research in the battery storage field. At MSRP, she studies the electrochemical environment of methanogens in hopes of controlling their methane production. She aspires to pursue a PhD in Chemical Engineering to develop eco-friendly technologies that have a global impact. Outside of the lab, Virginia is the co-president of the Lafayette Chapter of the AIChE, where she aims to create a community in the department and support her peers professionally. She is also involved with the International Students Association, where she strives to help other students overcome the challenges of being away from home. In her free time, she enjoys baking, traveling, and reading.
Abstract
Engineering the electrochemical environment to modify rates of
methanogenesis in Methanosarcina barkeri
Virginia Parparcén1, Swathi Penumutchu2, Juliet Okorie2 and Ariel Furst2
1Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Lafayette College
2Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Methane is one of the main greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, responsible for trapping
heat at 28 times higher potency than carbon dioxide. It is produced biologically through a process known as methanogenesis by archaea, which are single celled organisms that convert substrate carbon compounds into methane gas. They play an important role in the carbon cycle and have the potential to worsen climate change, which is why it is critical to understand their metabolism. Recent engineering advances to synthetically modify the electrochemical environment of microbes have provided new tools to modify microbial metabolism. The focus of this project is to determine the redox environment of different methanogen growth media and to assess rates of methanogenesis. Using this information, we designed electrochemical bioreactors to mimic these changes and modify methanogenesis. We assessed the electrochemical environment of media with variable salt and metal concentrations. Using gas chromatography, we quantified methane production to understand the effects of the environment on microbial metabolism. We then designed electrochemical bioreactors for methanogens that allow for precise control of the redoxenvironment, oxygen concentration, pressure, and quantification of methane. This work allows us to understand the relationship between redox environment and methane production in Methanosarcina barkeri and potential engineering solutions to modify methanogenesis.
