A key ingredient in biodegradable plastics can be produced by artificial photosynthesis, potentially reducing the green plastic industry’s dependence on petrochemical precursors.
Fumaric acid (C4H4O4) is a key building block in the biodegradable plastics poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) and poly(propylene fumarate) (PPF). It is most commonly produced by oxidizing furfural with chlorate in the presence of vanadium. But in order to move away from fossil fuels, another production method is needed, according to Mika Takeuchi and Yutaka Amao, researchers at Osaka Metropolitan Univ. in Japan.
Takeuchi and Amao have been working to perfect a light-driven production process that synthesizes fumarate from carbon dioxide (CO2) and pyruvate, two simple and abundant molecules. In studies published in 2022 and earlier this year, they developed a biocatalytic production method from either bicarbonate or gaseous CO2 and pyruvate, through an L-malate intermediate to fumaric acid. The process uses two biocatalysts, malate dehydrogenase and fumarase, in the presence of NADH in an aqueous media.
The NADH acts as a sacrificial reagent in the reaction. To regenerate it, the researchers use a visible-light-driven reaction to reduce NAD+ to NADH using triethanolamine as an electron donor and zinc porphyrin as a photosensitizer.
Specifically, the...
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