Christophe Mihalcea

I worked on fertilizer and living biomass production from methane using continuous gas fermentation to reduce agricultural reliance on synthetic nitrogen and mitigate methane emissions. Successfully transitioned microbes from chemical nitrogen sources to elemental nitrogen while maintaining high productivities and stable long‑duration operation, enabling a substantially reduced carbon footprint for crop production.

I collaborated with external engineering teams to design a methane‑to‑fertilizer pilot plant, delivering detailed exothermic heat calculations to size cooling systems and specify required sensors and analytics. In parallel, I partnered with a contract manufacturing organization to develop an intermediate‑scale biomass production process using methanol as the carbon and energy source.

Established gas fermentation capabilities at the laboratory scale and developed a multistage continuous gas fermentation process for bioplastic production using methane as the carbon and energy source. Successfully operated the process using both concentrated methane and raw biogas sourced from a wastewater treatment facility.

Focused on CO2 electrolyzer integration with LanzaTech’s gas fermentation technology to enable CO2 as feedstock for the production of fuels and chemicals. Demonstrated 100% carbon capture into products and biomass by successfully reprocessing bioreactor off-gases. Developed H2/CO2 multistage fermentation process in collaboration with industry partner to produce omega-3 fatty acids at very high rates and yields with acetate as intermediate product.

Worked on single cell protein fabrication via aerobic gas fermentation. Demonstrated proof of concept of in-situ-product-stripping method that provides significant cost reduction and process facilitation for biocatalytic production of chemicals.

Developed and optimized H2/CO2 based fermentation process to yield acetic acid at record rates. Worked on feed stock expansion for ethanol production by using waste gases with high hydrogen content.

Led team of 14 scientists to develop customized laboratory set-up to enable and facilitate gas fermentation R&D. Developed efficient microbial gas fermentation process to establish a commercial ethanol and 2,3-butanediol production route. Supported development and operations of a first steel mill gas-to-ethanol pilot plant in New Zealand.

Manufactured first integrated optical and magnetic recording head for Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology for extremely high-density data storage drives. Acquired extensive experience in high tech clean room environments using state of the art thin film patterning, etching and deposition systems.

Manufactured micromachined flying head aperture array probe for high density optical data storage applications. Developed fully IC compatible single crystal silicon wet etching technique with unparalleled high etching rates and smooth surface finish.

Developed batch fabrication process to produce unique micro-fabricated SNOM cantilever sensors for optical microscopy with spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit. Technology was licensed to WITec to be used as integral part of their alpha300 S microscope.