Type
ThesisAuthors
Shepard, Lera
Advisors
Rueping, Magnus
Committee members
Arold, Stefan T.
Bau, Jeremy
Program
BioscienceKAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) DivisionDate
2021-11Embargo End Date
2022-12-01Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/673878
Metadata
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At the time of archiving, the student author of this thesis opted to temporarily restrict access to it. The full text of this thesis will become available to the public after the expiration of the embargo on 2022-12-01.Abstract
Emissions of CO$_2$ largely contribute to global warming. Carbon dioxide can be captured and used to produce value-added chemicals. This thesis focuses on bioelectrocatalysis as a green and sustainable approach. Our aim was to perform conversion of CO$_2$ to methanol via a multi-enzymatic cascade. However, for reactions involving oxidoreductases, ß-NAD is required as a cofactor. Its use in stoichiometric amounts is unprofitable. We address the issue by employing electrochemical regeneration of the cofactor. For the cascade, we expressed and purified formate dehydrogenase, formaldehyde dehydrogenase and alcohol dehydrogenase. Enzymes activity was tested and found to be low for two enzymes. A reliable method to detect methanol via headspace gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector was developed. We tested the cascade with employed in situ electrochemical cofactor regeneration. After two and a half hours of the reaction 4 µmol methanol were detected. Further research is needed to optimize the setup.Citation
Shepard, L. (2021). Enzymatic Cascade for Conversion of CO$_2$ to Methanol. KAUST Research Repository. https://doi.org/10.25781/KAUST-GO133ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.25781/KAUST-GO133