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Oct 23, 2024

Just add air and water: China lab finds eco-friendly pathway to chemical production | South China Morning Post

A quest for a better way to create amino acids holds promise for sustainable chemical synthesis At a research lab in the city of Hefei, in southeastern China’s Anhui province, a team of scientists has

A quest for a better way to create amino acids holds promise for sustainable chemical synthesis

At a research lab in the city of Hefei, in southeastern China’s Anhui province, a team of scientists has managed to create amino acids – the building block of life – using only air and water.

The research also indicated a potential for more complicated molecules, such as proteins, the project’s lead scientist Zeng Jie, from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), said on Monday.

Amino acids, the fundamental components of proteins, play a crucial role in living organisms and the researchers were looking for another way to synthesise glycine – the simplest stable amino acid.

Traditional methods of synthesising glycine have relied heavily on petroleum-derived products such as aldehydes and cyanides. These methods not only consume a significant amount of energy but also produce substantial waste, leading to environmental pollution.