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Chinese researchers from Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, consisting of The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has developed an innovative method for converting methanol into sugar.
This method, associated with capture with CO₂, could contribute to food production in the future. Traditional sugar beet or cane cultivation requires large areas of land and consumes significant amounts of water, unlike the new method proposed by Chinese scientists. Scientists have used enzymes to convert methanol from industrial emissions and chemical treatment of CO₂ into complex sugars.
«The artificial conversion of carbon dioxide into food and chemicals is a promising strategy for solving both environmental and demographic problems while contributing to carbon neutrality», — chinese researchers emphasize.
The system not only produces sucrose, but can also be adapted to produce other important carbohydrates, such as fructose and starch These developments mark an important step towards production of products directly from chemicals, bypassing traditional agriculture.
In their research, the scientists used in vitro biotransformation, a method that allows the creation of useful molecules in the absence of living organisms using enzymes. Although China is capable of growing both sugar beet and cane, the country still imports about 5 million tons of sugar annually to meet its 15 million tons per year demand.
Climate change is putting increasing pressure on agriculture in China and around the world. So Chinese researchers are looking for more efficient and scalable alternatives creation of food products.
In 2021, another group of Chinese researchers from The Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics has developed a low-temperature method for converting CO₂ to methanol. This paved the way for the conversion of carbon waste into raw materials for the production of valuable chemicals such as sugars.
Building on this success, a team of researchers from Tianjin Institute has developed a highly efficient way to convert methanol into sugars through a series of rapid, low-energy chemical reactions. They achieved a conversion rate of an impressive 86%.
«In this study, several platforms were created to convert low-carbon molecules that can be obtained through chemical reduction of CO₂ or chemical-biological conversion of industrial waste into high-carbon (C≥12) sugars», — the researchers note.
This system not only synthesized sucrose using methanol for the first time, but also produced starch using less energy than previous methods. According to Chinese researchers, this approach can be applied to a wide range of complex sugars, not just those used for sweetening.
Using the same system, the researchers were able to synthesize fructose, amylose, amylopectin, cellobiose, and cellooligosaccharides — carbohydrates used not only in the food industry but also in pharmaceuticals and other industrial sectors. Meanwhile, the scientists noted that additional research is needed to scale the technology. They plan to increase the efficiency of the enzymes and make the system more stable and reliable for industrial applications.
The results of the study are published in the journal Science Bulletin
Source: Interesting Engineering