Concatenating Microbial, Enzymatic, and Organometallic Catalysis for Integrated Conversion of Renewable Carbon Sources.

The chemical industry can now seize the opportunity to improve the sustainability of its processes by replacing fossil carbon sources with renewable alternatives such as CO, biomass, and plastics, thereby thinking ahead and having a look into the future. For their conversion to intermediate and final products, different types of catalysts-microbial, enzymatic, and organometallic-can be applied. The first part of this review shows how these catalysts can work separately in parallel, each route with unique requirements and advantages.

Interdisciplinary development of an overall process concept from glucose to 4,5-dimethyl-1,3-dioxolane via 2,3-butanediol.

To reduce carbon dioxide emissions, carbon-neutral fuels have recently gained renewed attention. Here we show the development and evaluation of process routes for the production of such a fuel, the cyclic acetal 4,5-dimethyl-1,3-dioxolane, from glucose via 2,3-butanediol. The selected process routes are based on the sequential use of microbes, enzymes and chemo-catalysts in order to exploit the full potential of the different catalyst systems through a tailor-made combination.

Seeing the smell of garlic: Detection of gas phase volatiles from crushed garlic (Allium sativum), onion (Allium cepa), ramsons (Allium ursinum) and human garlic breath using SESI-Orbitrap MS.

Allicin is the main flavour component of crushed raw garlic. This plant defence molecule has strong antibiotic properties. While measurements in the liquid phase using LC-MS are established, accessing reactive organosulfur compounds in the gas phase is still a challenge due to heat-degradation in the gas chromatograph.

Using off-gas for insights through online monitoring of ethanol and baker's yeast volatilome using SESI-Orbitrap MS.

Volatile organic compounds play an essential role in every domain of life, with diverse functions. In this study, we use novel secondary electrospray ionisation high-resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometry (SESI-Orbitrap MS) to monitor the complete yeast volatilome every 2.3 s.

A host-vector toolbox for improved secretory protein overproduction in Bacillus subtilis.

Target proteins in biotechnological applications are highly diverse. Therefore, versatile flexible expression systems for their functional overproduction are required. In order to find the right heterologous gene expression strategy, suitable host-vector systems, which combine different genetic circuits, are useful.

Yeast-based production and in situ purification of acetaldehyde.

Acetaldehyde is a platform chemical with a production volume of more than 1 Mt/a, but is chiefly synthesized from petrochemical feedstocks. We propose the fermentative conversion of glucose towards acetaldehyde via genetically modified S. cerevisiae.