I hope that the chemicals used in the process are safe for the environment.
It sounds amazing to use 90%less land - but what is the actual carbon footprint of this process. I would love to see a negative number!
Researchers at the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology have reportedly found a way to synthesize starch directly from carbon dioxide. Achieved using only enzymes and raw materials…
Hard to say, since ‘raw materials’ could be, well anything I suppose, but seems probably the process isn’t using horrible toxins, or anything
Today, most [industrial starch]…requires large amounts of land to cultivate the feed crop. Owing to this, cornstarch production also consumes vast amounts of water and relies heavily on the use of fertilizers and pesticides.
Plus, sounds like even if it’s not perfect, might be better than that.
" In the chemical reaction unit, CO2 was chemically hydrogenated to methanol at a rate of ~0.25 g hour−1 g−1 catalyst, and the produced methanol was constantly condensed and fed into the enzymatic unit to a final concentration of ~100 mM during the first hour. In the enzymatic unit, the methanol was first converted to ~22.5 mM C3 intermediate DHA for another 1 hour by supplementing two core enzymes and auxiliary catalase (cat) and then transformed to ~1.6 g liter−1 amylose starch in the subsequent 2 hours by supplementing the remaining eight core enzymes and auxiliary components (Fig. 3A). "
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I hope that the chemicals used in the process are safe for the environment.
It sounds amazing to use 90%less land - but what is the actual carbon footprint of this process. I would love to see a negative number!
Hard to say, since ‘raw materials’ could be, well anything I suppose, but seems probably the process isn’t using horrible toxins, or anything
Plus, sounds like even if it’s not perfect, might be better than that.
" In the chemical reaction unit, CO2 was chemically hydrogenated to methanol at a rate of ~0.25 g hour−1 g−1 catalyst, and the produced methanol was constantly condensed and fed into the enzymatic unit to a final concentration of ~100 mM during the first hour. In the enzymatic unit, the methanol was first converted to ~22.5 mM C3 intermediate DHA for another 1 hour by supplementing two core enzymes and auxiliary catalase (cat) and then transformed to ~1.6 g liter−1 amylose starch in the subsequent 2 hours by supplementing the remaining eight core enzymes and auxiliary components (Fig. 3A). "
The information is on the Original Science Journals Paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abh4049 (login - free account - required)
Thank you for the link.
Tho it is over my head :)