# Engineered marine bacteria accelerated olivine weathering in bioreactors

_Friday, August 28, 2026 at 10:20 AM EDT · Science · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

![Engineered marine bacteria accelerated olivine weathering in bioreactors — Primary](https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/2026/pulling-carbon-into-se-2.jpg)

Researchers at Harvard and Stanford engineered the marine bacterium Alteromonas macleodii to keep producing siderophores, molecules that remove iron from silicate-mineral surfaces. In continuous-flow seawater bioreactors, the team reported a 2.6-fold increase in olivine weathering and higher carbon-dioxide removal. Pilot-scale reactors containing several kilograms of olivine sand reportedly captured 0.5 grams of atmospheric CO2 per day. The results were published in Nature Biotechnology, but the researchers say further scale-up work is needed to identify economical feedstocks and minerals.

## Sources

- [Phys.org](https://phys.org/news/2026-08-bacteria-weathering-carbon.html)

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