Zengyi Shao and
Jean-Philippe Tessonnier, left to right, are combining
their expertise in
biocatalysis and chemical catalysis to produce a new type
of biobased nylon.
Photo by Christopher Gannon.
(February 9, 2016) Engineers
at Iowa State University have found a way to combine a genetically engineered
strain of yeast and an electrocatalyst to efficiently convert sugar into a new
type of nylon.
Previous attempts to combine biocatalysis and chemical
catalysis to produce biorenewable chemicals have resulted in low conversion
rates. That’s usually because the biological processes leave residual
impurities that harm the effectiveness of chemical catalysts.
The engineers’ successful hybrid conversion process is
described online and as the cover paper of the Feb. 12 issue of the journal
Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
“The ideal biorefinery pipelines, from biomass to the final
products, are currently disrupted by a gap between biological conversion and
chemical diversification. We herein report a strategy to bridge this gap with a
hybrid fermentation and electrocatalytic process,” wrote lead authors Zengyi
Shao and Jean-Philippe Tessonnier, Iowa State assistant professors of chemical
and biological engineering who are also affiliated with the National Science
Foundation Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC) based
at Iowa State.
The process described by the engineers “opens the door to
the production of a broad range of compounds not accessible from the
petrochemical industry,” Shao said.
Moving forward, the engineers will work to scale up their
technology by developing a continuous conversion process, said Tessonnier,
who’s a Carol and Jack Johnson Faculty Fellow and also an associate scientist
with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory.