{"id":32442,"date":"2016-02-23T07:42:43","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T06:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rss.nova-institut.net\/public.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biofuelsdigest.com%2Fbdigest%2F2016%2F02%2F11%2Fiowa-state-engineers-develop-nylon-from-sugar-using-yeast-and-electrocatalyst%2F"},"modified":"2016-02-15T11:02:28","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T10:02:28","slug":"iowa-state-engineers-develop-hybrid-technology-to-create-biorenewable-nylon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/iowa-state-engineers-develop-hybrid-technology-to-create-biorenewable-nylon\/","title":{"rendered":"Iowa State engineers develop hybrid technology to create biorenewable nylon"},"content":{"rendered":"

AMES, Iowa \u2013 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Previous attempts to combine biocatalysis and chemical catalysis to produce biorenewable chemicals have resulted in low conversion rates. That\u2019s usually because the biological processes leave residual impurities that harm the effectiveness of chemical catalysts.<\/p>\n

\"Zengyi
Zengyi Shao and Jean-Philippe Tessonnier, left to right, are combining their expertise in biocatalytic and chemical catalytic technologies to produce a new type of biobased nylon. Photo by Christopher Gannon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The engineers\u2019 successful hybrid conversion process is described online and as the cover paper of the Feb. 12 issue of the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d wrote lead authors Zengyi Shao and Jean-Philippe Tessonnier, Iowa State assistant professors of chemical and biological engineering<\/a> who are also affiliated with the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC)<\/a> based at Iowa State.<\/p>\n

The process described by the engineers \u201copens the door to the production of a broad range of compounds not accessible from the petrochemical industry,\u201d Shao said.<\/p>\n

Moving forward, the engineers will work to scale up their technology by developing a continuous conversion process, said Tessonnier, who\u2019s a Carol and Jack Johnson Faculty Fellow and also an associate scientist with the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s Ames Laboratory.<\/a><\/p>\n

The engineers\u2019 research was supported by CBiRC, the National Science Foundation, Iowa State\u2019s Plant Sciences Institute<\/a> and the Ames Laboratory.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how their technology works:<\/p>\n

Shao\u2019s research group has created genetically engineered yeast \u2013 \u201ca microbial factory,\u201d she said \u2013 that ferments glucose into muconic acid. By applying metabolic engineering strategies, the group also significantly improved the yield of the acid. Then, without any purification, Tessonnier\u2019s group introduced a metal catalyst \u2013 lead \u2013 into the mixture and applied a small voltage to convert the acid. The resulting reaction adds hydrogen to the mix and produces 3-hexenedioic acid.<\/p>\n

After simple separation and polymerization, the engineers produced biobased, unsaturated nylon-6,6, which has the advantage of an extra double bond in its backbone that can be used to tailor the polymer\u2019s properties.<\/p>\n

The engineers say the hybrid conversion technology offers many advantages: The reaction is performed at room temperature, it uses a cheap and abundant metal instead of precious elements such as palladium or platinum, and the other compounds involved in the reaction are produced from water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave it a try and it worked immediately,\u201d Tessonnier said. \u201cThe process does not need additional chemical supplement, and it works amazingly at ambient temperature and pressure, which is very rare for this type of process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shao and Tessonnier started talking about working together while car-pooling from a research meeting two hours from campus.<\/p>\n

Their collaboration illustrates the CBiRC way \u2013 combining the tools of biologists and chemists to develop hybrid technologies that produce novel biorenewable chemicals. And now the resulting collaboration \u2013 and CBiRC\u2019s core vision \u2013 are turning out discoveries and high-profile research papers.<\/p>\n

\u201cCBiRC seeds these new ideas and concepts,\u201d Tessonnier said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about integration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shao agreed, saying, \u201cCBiRC provides the nurturing environment to brainstorm what can be done with the expertise owned by two groups of experts who are trained through very different routes. This vision of these fields working together is going to grow. Students educated through such interdisciplinary research projects will definitely stand out with a broader vision in the biorenewable industry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AMES, Iowa \u2013 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\u2019s usually because the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5794,5817],"supplier":[2250,19411,1185],"class_list":["post-32442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biotech","tag-research","supplier-ames-laboratory-us-department-of-energy","supplier-angewandte-chemie-journal","supplier-iowa-state-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32442"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=32442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}