Enzyme-photo-coupled catalysis in gas-sprayed microdroplets

Enzyme-photo-coupled catalysis produces fine chemicals by combining the high selectivity of an enzyme with the green energy input of sunlight. Operating a large-scale system, however, remains challenging because of the significant loss of enzyme activity caused by continuous illumination and the dif...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemical science (Cambridge) 2022-07, Vol.13 (28), p.8341-8348
Main Authors: Bai, Yunxiu, Luan, Pengqian, Bai, Yunpeng, Zare, Richard N, Ge, Jun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alcohols
Catalysis
Chemistry
Clean energy
Energy utilization
Enzyme activity
Fine chemicals
Selectivity
Solar energy
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Summary:Enzyme-photo-coupled catalysis produces fine chemicals by combining the high selectivity of an enzyme with the green energy input of sunlight. Operating a large-scale system, however, remains challenging because of the significant loss of enzyme activity caused by continuous illumination and the difficulty in utilizing solar energy with high efficiency at large scale. We present a large-scale enzyme-photo-coupled catalysis system based on gas-sprayed microdroplets. By this means, we demonstrate a 43.6-71.5 times improvement of solar energy utilization over that using a traditional bulk processing system. Owing to the improved enzyme activity in microdroplets, we show that chiral alcohols can be produced with up to a 2.2-fold increase in the reaction rate and a 5.6-fold increase in final product concentration. A gas-spray reactor separating photocatalytic and enzymatic components for prolonging enzyme activity in microdroplets is constructed, enables continuous production of chiral alcohols via enzyme-photo-coupled catalysis.
ISSN:2041-6520
2041-6539
DOI:10.1039/d2sc02791g