CHIMIA
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Carbon Dioxide Capture: Current Status and Future Prospects
Get PDFThe surge in greenhouse gas emissions, predominantly in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) spurred by the Industrial Revolution, has surpassed the critical threshold of 400 ppm, fueling global warming, ocean acidification, and climate change. To mitigate the adverse effects of these emissions and limit the global temperature rise to below 2 °C, the ambitious target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 was established in the Paris Agreement. Current state-of-the-art technologies, such as amine scrubbing, remain problematic owing to their high energy requirements, susceptibility to corrosion, and other operational challenges. Owing to the lack of suitable technologies coupled with escalating energy demand, there is still a significant amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for the development of alternative technologies that offer high efficiency, low energy consumption, cost-effective installation, and operation. In this review, we delve into the emerging technologies poised to address these challenges, evaluating their maturity levels in comparison to existing commercially available solutions. Furthermore, we provide a brief overview of ongoing efforts aimed at commercializing these innovative technologies
Electron-Transferring Metalloenzymes and their Potential Biotechnological Applications
Get PDFModern societies rely heavily on centralized industrial processes to generate a multitude of products ranging from electrical energy to synthetic chemical building blocks to construction materials. To date, these processes have relied extensively on energy produced from fossil fuels, which has led to dramatically increased quantities of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide) being released into the atmosphere; the effects of the ensuing change to our climate are easily observed in day-to-day life. Some of the reactions catalyzed by these industrial processes can be catalyzed in nature by metal-containing enzymes (metalloenzymes) that have evolved over the course of up to 3.8 billion years to do so under mild physiological conditions using Earth-abundant metals. While such metalloenzymes could in principle facilitate the implementation of carbon-neutral processes around the globe, either in “bio-inspired” catalyst design or even by direct exploitation, many remaining questions surrounding their mechanisms often preclude both options. Here, our recent efforts in understanding and applying metalloenzymes that catalyze reactions such as dinitrogen reduction to ammonia or proton reduction to molecular hydrogen are discussed. In closing, an opinion on the question: “Can these types of enzymes really be used in new biotechnologies?” is offered
Reducing Endotoxin Contamination in Biopharmaceuticals for Happier Biotechnologist? Highlights of Analytical Sciences in Switzerland
No full textChemical Space for Peptide-based Antimicrobials
Get PDFMultidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria represent a global public health threat, and antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), derived from naturally occurring linear or cyclic peptides, can provide the solution. However, most AMPs are sensitive to proteases and have poor pharmacokinetics. The EU-funded ERC Advanced Grant SPACE4AMPS aims to identify new AMPs by applying the concepts of chemical space and ligand-based virtual screening, which are well known for small molecule drug discovery, to the world of peptides. We create virtual libraries of peptides and related molecules and use these approaches to select a few tens of compounds for synthesis and detailed. evaluation of antibacterial, toxicity and stability effects. Recent results and prospects of this ongoing project are presented in this review
Waste-to-Taste: Transforming Wet Byproducts of the Food Industry into New Nutritious Foods
Get PDFFood and beverage production generates enormous amounts of spent residues in the form of pomaces, pulps, grains, skins, seeds, etc. Although these sidestreams remain nutritious, their conversion to foods can be complicated by issues of digestibility and processing, particularly when the residues are wet and therefore highly susceptible to microbial degradation. Ideally, these sidestreams could be stabilized and then re-circulated into food, instead of being diverted to waste, animal feed, or biofuels. Indeed, the end-of-life of our food crops is increasingly important to consider in the context of circularity, ensuring that land, water, and chemical inputs to agriculture are sustainable. In the context of wet byproducts from the food industry, we discuss two separate case studies that look at how to valorize and extend the longevity of nutritionally-rich but underutilized sidestreams. The first study examines the fermentation of okara into an edible tempeh-like cake, while the second investigates ProSeed’s approach to drying and valorizing brewer’s spent grain. We conclude with some words on the nuance and challenges involved in saving from waste the highly perishable but nutritious side products of current food and beverage production
