Chinese scientists turn carbon dioxide to starch with 10-fold productivity boost
Feat seen to pave the way for industrial starch production without relying on water- and land-intensive corn
Chinese scientists have increased the yield of a carbon dioxide-to-starch conversion method by more than 10 times, potentially paving the way for industrial starch production without the need for agriculture.
In 2021, researchers from the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology (TIB) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) unveiled the world’s first method to synthesise starch from carbon dioxide with the help of enzymes.
In a peer-reviewed Science paper at the time, the team reported that their lab method could produce the complex carbohydrate 8.5 times faster than natural starch synthesis in corn.
Some five years on, the researchers are moving towards commercialising the technique, by making it cheaper and more efficient.
Recent advances had boosted the starch output to 10 times that achieved in 2021, the CAS-run China Science Daily reported on Friday.
“It’s difficult to go from zero to one, it’s difficult to reduce costs, and it’s even more difficult to achieve industrial application in the end,” Cai Tao, a TIB professor leading the effort, told China Science Daily.