Chinese Chemists Learned to Create Sugar Literally From “Air”
Chinese chemists from the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology (part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) have developed a new method for creating regular white sugar (sucrose) not from plants, but from methanol, a substance that can be obtained from carbon dioxide.
In the process of developing technologies for converting carbon dioxide into something useful – fuel, chemical feedstock or even food – scientists have already learned how to efficiently convert CO₂ into simple molecules. However, there were no simple solutions for converting carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and hydrocarbons consisting of long chains (more than 12 carbon atoms). Scientists from the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to them, have managed to find an acceptable way and have achieved impressive results.
Scientists have managed to create a process for the efficient synthesis of complex carbohydrates from CO₂. First, methanol is synthesized in the presence of catalysts and enzymes, and then various compounds for the food and chemical industries can be obtained on its basis, including fructose, amylose, amylopectin, cellobiose and cellooligosaccharides. Conversion efficiency reaches an impressive 86%, and reaction chains are short, which significantly reduces energy costs.
The new method will help solve several global problems at once if the process is scaled up, for example, it allows for the utilization of CO₂, reducing carbon emissions. With population growth and reduction of arable land, this is an alternative to traditional agriculture and a way to obtain cheap sugar production without water.
