Solar-driven sugar production directly from CO2 via a customizable electrocatalytic–biocatalytic flow system
Guangyu Liu, Yuan Zhong, Zehua Liu, Gang Wang, Feng Gao, Chao Zhang, Yujie Wang, Hongwei Zhang, Jun Ma, Yangguang Hu, Aobo Chen, Jiangyuan Pan, Yuanzeng Min, Zhiyong Tang, Chao Gao, Yujie Xiong
Abstract
Abstract Conventional food production is restricted by energy conversion efficiency of natural photosynthesis and demand for natural resources. Solar-driven artificial food synthesis from CO 2 provides an intriguing approach to overcome the limitations of natural photosynthesis while promoting carbon-neutral economy, however, it remains very challenging. Here, we report the design of a hybrid electrocatalytic−biocatalytic flow system, coupling photovoltaics-powered electrocatalysis (CO 2 to formate) with five-enzyme cascade platform (formate to sugar) engineered via genetic mutation and bioinformatics, which achieves conversion of CO 2 to C 6 sugar (L-sorbose) with a solar-to-food energy conversion efficiency of 3.5%, outperforming natural photosynthesis by over three-fold. This flow system can in principle be programmed by coupling with diverse enzymes toward production of multifarious food from CO 2 . This work opens a promising avenue for artificial food synthesis from CO 2 under confined environments.