On September 23, the Chinese Academy of Sciences held the first press
conference of the year to publicize important progress made by the Tianjin
Institute of Industrial Biotechnology in artificial starch synthesis. The
researchers of the institute proposed a starch preparation method that does not
rely on plant photosynthesis and that rather uses carbon dioxide and hydrogen
produced by electrolysis as raw materials. This is the first time in the world
to achieve de novo synthesis of carbon dioxide into starch. With this
breakthrough achievement, it may be possible to transform starch production
from a traditional agricultural planting model to an industrial workshop
production model. These research results were published in Science Magazine on
September 24.
New starch synthesis pathway simplifies and
improves traditional photosynthetic starch production process
Starch is the main component of flour, rice,
corn and other grains, and it is also an important industrial raw material.
Currently, starch is mainly synthesized from carbon dioxide through plant
photosynthesis. In crops such as corn, the conversion of carbon dioxide into
starch involves more than 60 steps of metabolic reactions and complex
physiological regulation, and the utilization efficiency of solar energy does
not exceed 2%. Furthermore, the planting of crops usually takes a period of
several months and uses a lot of resources such as land, fresh water, and
fertilizer.
According to
Yanhe Ma, one of the authors of the paper describing this breakthrough,
researchers have been working hard for a long time to improve the process of
photosynthesis, hoping to increase the conversion rate of carbon dioxide and
the efficiency of light energy utilization, and ultimately improve the
production efficiency of starch.
Researchers
from the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy
of Sciences designed a new method for artificial carbon dioxide fixation and
artificial starch synthesis with an 11-step reaction, achieving the full synthesis
from carbon dioxide to starch molecules in the laboratory for the first time.
The starch synthesis rate of the research team's artificial pathway is 8.5
times that of corn starch.
Synthetic starch production may replace
agricultural production in the future
With sufficient energy supply, according to the
current theoretical technical parameters, the annual starch output of a 1 cubic
meter reactor is equivalent to the average annual output of planted corn on 5
acres of land. This achievement makes it possible to transform the traditional
agricultural planting model of starch production to an industrial workshop
production and opens up a new technical route for the synthesis of complex
molecules from carbon dioxide raw materials.
If the cost
of the artificial process can be reduced in the future to be economically
feasible compared with traditional agricultural planting, it will save more
than 90% of arable land. Furthermore, the artificial process will save
freshwater resources, avoid the negative impact of pesticides and fertilizers
on the environment, improve human food security, promote the development of a
carbon-neutral bio-economy, and promote the formation of a sustainable
bio-based society. However, this achievement is still in the laboratory stage
and is far from practical application.
For more
information, please check our Corn
Products China News.
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