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Thermodynamic Feasibility of Enzymatic Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol

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Abstract

Production of valuable chemicals from CO2 is highly desired for the purpose of controlling CO2 emission. Toward that, enzymatic reduction of CO2 for the production of methanol appeared to be especially promising. That has been achieved by reversing the biological metabolic reaction pathways. However, hitherto, there has been little discussion on the thermodynamic feasibility of reversing such biological pathways. The reported yields of methanol have been generally very low under regular reaction conditions preferred by naturally evolved enzymes. The current work examines the sequential enzymatic conversion of CO2 into methanol from a thermodynamic point of view with a focus on factors that control the reaction equilibrium. Our analysis showed that the enzymatic conversion of carbon dioxide is highly sensitive to the pH value of the reaction solution and, by conducting the reactions at low pHs (such as pH 6 or 5) and ionic strength, it is possible to shift the biological methanol metabolic reaction equilibrium constants significantly (by a factor of several orders of magnitude) to favor the synthesis of methanol.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Professor Linda Broadbelt for the valuable discussions. This study was supported by an IREE (SG-B5-2006) and Biocatalysis Seed Grant (2008) from the University of Minnesota.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, Biotechnology Institute, The University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    F. Suhan Baskaya, Xueyan Zhao & Ping Wang

  2. Department of Microbiology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Michael C. Flickinger

  3. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Michael C. Flickinger

Authors
  1. F. Suhan Baskaya
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  2. Xueyan Zhao
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  3. Michael C. Flickinger
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  4. Ping Wang
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Correspondence to Ping Wang.

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Baskaya, F.S., Zhao, X., Flickinger, M.C. et al. Thermodynamic Feasibility of Enzymatic Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 162, 391–398 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-009-8758-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-009-8758-x

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