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Scientists complete starch synthesis from CO2, revolutionary for agricultural

globaltimes.cn

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Re: Scientists complete starch synthesis from CO2, revolutionary for agricultural

#41

Post by bertil »

sk2020 wrote: post #18
phtrivier wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the upside could be that you _could_ imagine (if, of course, the whole thing was efficient enough) a process where you use low-carbon electricity (nuclear or poorly-timed renewables) to power CO2 capture from air, and then turn the CO2 into starch, and then maybe turn the starch into something edible ? (I don't have enough grain of salts to take my own words here...) It's a huge stretch to image that being…

There may be places where you would want access to starches, agriculture is not feasible, transportation costs are prohibitive, but you also have abundant power. I’m struggling to think of a place that meets all those criteria.

Near Arctic regions like Lappland where I live fit the bill:

* plenty of hydro power (which is why there’s data centers and battery recycling);

* agriculture isn’t possible outside with no sun and meters of snow; there’s greenhouses, including opaque ones with purely electric lighting but it’s expensive;

* transport by road is common, but harder in winter without fossil fuels and battery uncomfortable at -40ºC/F.

Any local activity could generate CO2, but the biggest existing one is paper mills.

Re: Scientists complete starch synthesis from CO2, revolutionary for agricultural

#42

Post by gpcr1949 »

jpollock wrote: post #33

Can't you go from starches to plastics? So, wouldn't this allow fossil fuel free plastic, without having to convert land from food to plastic production? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic

the very first intermediate is methanol (produced chemically in one step via hydrogenation in this paper, using a known method) so you can just use methanol to polymers via method of choice, e.g. [0] no need to convert to starch first.

[0] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscatal.5b00007

Re: Scientists complete starch synthesis from CO2, revolutionary for agricultural

#43

Post by gpcr1949 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #13
mrfusion wrote: post #2

Can anyone explain how this works?

See jarenmf's comment. Basically the CO2 is catalyzed into Methane using an 'inorganic catalyst', there is this paper[1] which uses a ruthenium catalyst at 400 degrees C to do it. Then the methane is consumed by some genetically modified bacteria (probably e.coli) first to convert it to an intermediate product, and then with a second organism to convert it into starch. In the article they talk about genetically modif…

the CO2 is converted to methanol not methane. theoretically 3 equivalents of dihydrogen (which you need energy to produce) are needed per CO2. the hydrogenation requires veery high concentrations of CO2 (energy needed to concentrate it) and H2 so from the energy point of view it is not that good. however from the point of view of bio-engineering it is a really nice result

Re: Scientists complete starch synthesis from CO2, revolutionary for agricultural

#44

Post by ChuckMcM »

gpcr1949 wrote: post #43
ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See jarenmf's comment. Basically the CO2 is catalyzed into Methane using an 'inorganic catalyst', there is this paper[1] which uses a ruthenium catalyst at 400 degrees C to do it. Then the methane is consumed by some genetically modified bacteria (probably e.coli) first to convert it to an intermediate product, and then with a second organism to convert it into starch. In the article they talk about genetically modif…

the CO2 is converted to methanol not methane. theoretically 3 equivalents of dihydrogen (which you need energy to produce) are needed per CO2. the hydrogenation requires veery high concentrations of CO2 (energy needed to concentrate it) and H2 so from the energy point of view it is not that good. however from the point of view of bio-engineering it is a really nice result

Agreed, this result is more about creating 'food' without plants than it is saving costs. The useful thing is that it shows a path for out-of-ecosystem food production which will be useful in places like Mars or a Lunar colony.

Re: Scientists complete starch synthesis from CO2, revolutionary for agricultural

#46

Post by credit_guy »

A lot of people are dismissive, and to be honest, I'm a bit skeptical too.

But this is fundamentally an absolutely great idea. If anyone is able to crack this nut, then this could be a more momentous invention than the Haber-Bosch process.

Here's why: at this point all food produced on Earth starts from the point where photosynthesis produces a molecule of sugar. That reaction is terribly inefficient at 1-3% efficiency. At least in principle it should be possible to synthetically produce glucose and other sugars at a higher efficiency. This paper [1] goes into more details.

Once you get synthetic sugars or starch, you can use them as feedstock for other things. Aquaculture, poultry, mushrooms, etc.

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.0009...

Re: Scientists complete starch synthesis from CO2, revolutionary for agricultural

#48

Post by newsbinator »

bshipp wrote: post #40
shauryamanu wrote: post #5

Taking this news with a grain of salt, with obvious reasons.

Every time I read the Global Times I find myself wondering "how does a propaganda paper for a country with 1.4 billion people still not know how to write things that don't sound like blantant propaganda?" You'd think, with all their resources, they could have hired someone a bit more learned in the gentle art of subtlety.

We are not the target audience

Re: Scientists complete starch synthesis from CO2, revolutionary for agricultural

#49

Post by yourapostasy »

gpcr1949 wrote: post #43
ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See jarenmf's comment. Basically the CO2 is catalyzed into Methane using an 'inorganic catalyst', there is this paper[1] which uses a ruthenium catalyst at 400 degrees C to do it. Then the methane is consumed by some genetically modified bacteria (probably e.coli) first to convert it to an intermediate product, and then with a second organism to convert it into starch. In the article they talk about genetically modif…

the CO2 is converted to methanol not methane. theoretically 3 equivalents of dihydrogen (which you need energy to produce) are needed per CO2. the hydrogenation requires veery high concentrations of CO2 (energy needed to concentrate it) and H2 so from the energy point of view it is not that good. however from the point of view of bio-engineering it is a really nice result

> ...requires veery high concentrations of CO2 (energy needed to concentrate it)...

I wish we had a process similar in efficiency to a heat pump that moves gradients of diffuse molecules than thermal energy. But the osmotic pressure or other diffuse gradient movement methods I'm aware of are quite energy intensive.

Re: Scientists complete starch synthesis from CO2, revolutionary for agricultural

#50

Post by rishav_sharan »

credit_guy wrote: post #46

A lot of people are dismissive, and to be honest, I'm a bit skeptical too. But this is fundamentally an absolutely great idea. If anyone is able to crack this nut, then this could be a more momentous invention than the Haber-Bosch process. Here's why: at this point all food produced on Earth starts from the point where photosynthesis produces a molecule of sugar. That reaction is terribly inefficient at 1-3% efficien…

I am somewhat dismissive, not of the process but of the end outcome itself.

Industrial scale carbon capture only makes sense, if we are going sequester it and remove the carbon from the ecosystem. If we are just going to make fuel/food out of it, it would make no difference to our Climate woes, other than perhaps buy us some time.

I guess, that's still better than what we have, but I can't help think of these as half measures.

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