Solar-driven sugar production directly from CO<sub>2</sub> via a customizable electrocatalytic-biocatalytic flow system.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38528028.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-46954-w and PMC identifier 10963751.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Conventional food production is restricted by energy conversion efficiency of natural photosynthesis and demand for natural resources. Solar-driven artificial food synthesis from CO2 provides an intriguing approach to overcome the limitations of natural photosynthesis while promoting carbon-neutral economy, however, it remains very challenging. Here, we report the design of a hybrid electrocatalytic-biocatalytic flow system, coupling photovoltaics-powered electrocatalysis (CO2 to formate) with five-enzyme cascade platform (formate to sugar) engineered via genetic mutation and bioinformatics, which achieves conversion of CO2 to C6 sugar (L-sorbose) with a solar-to-food energy conversion efficiency of 3.5%, outperforming natural photosynthesis by over three-fold. This flow system can in principle be programmed by coupling with diverse enzymes toward production of multifarious food from CO2. This work opens a promising avenue for artificial food synthesis from CO2 under confined environments.