After the first artificial synthesis of carbon dioxide to starch in the laboratory in 2021, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Tianjin Industrial Biotechnology Research Institute located in the Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone, in cooperation with the scientific research team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, made another major breakthrough in 2023 and successfully achieved the precise synthesis of carbon dioxide to sugar.
Sugar is an important substance in human life activities and daily life, as well as a key raw material for industrial biomanufacturing. Hexose is a general term for sugars widely distributed in nature and most closely related to the nutritional metabolism of the body.
The traditional way to obtain sugar is through the process of "carbon dioxide biomass resources sugar", which is limited by the energy conversion efficiency of plant photosynthesis.
In addition, due to land degradation and scarcity, ecosystem degradation, extreme weather and natural disasters caused by global climate change, production methods relying on sugar biomass resources face issues such as raw material supply security and risks.
To solve these problems, the research team spent more than 2 years completing technical breakthroughs. They developed a precise de novo synthesis technology for sugars through artificial conversion of carbon dioxide. Based on enzymatic reactions such as carbon condensation, isomerization, and dephosphorization, they designed and constructed a chemical enzyme coupled non natural conversion pathway, engineered the catalytic properties of enzyme protein molecules, and achieved precise control of the synthesis of different structures and functions of hexoses.
In the laboratory, the reaction time for generating sugar is about 17 hours, and the weight of synthesized sugar per liter per hour is 0.67 grams. Its carbon conversion rate is higher than traditional plant photosynthesis, as well as reported chemical sugar production and electrochemical biological coupling artificial sugar production methods. It is currently the highest level of carbon conversion efficiency in artificial sugar production routes.
At the same time, a biological system has been established that can further extend the types and configurations of sugar products, enabling the artificial creation of diverse sugar molecules.
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This research achievement overturns the paradigm of relying on the conversion of sugar biomass resources to prepare complex sugar molecules, providing a flexible and scalable sugar manufacturing model that can obtain functional sugar molecules with rare natural content, thereby expanding the application scope.
The obtained sugar can not only be used as raw materials in fields such as food and medicine, effectively alleviating the pressure of sugar demand caused by population growth, but also demonstrating extensive practical value in multiple fields such as biomedicine and industry.
This achievement has opened up a new path for direct sugar production under industrial conditions, reducing dependence on land and water, converting carbon dioxide into essential products for human production and life such as starch and sugar, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, helping to achieve the "dual carbon" goal as soon as possible.
Manfred Leitz, an internationally renowned organic chemist and expert in biocatalysis, commented that this achievement has made a real breakthrough in this competitive research field, providing a flexible, multifunctional, and efficient route for sugar synthesis, opening a door for green chemistry.
However, there is still a long way to go before industrial production, and relevant scientific and engineering technology issues still need to be addressed.
