Biorefineries aim to convert biomass to a spectrum of products ranging from biofuels to specialty chemicals. To achieve economically sustainable conversion it is crucial to streamline the catalytic and downstream processing steps. Here we report a route that integrates bio- and chemical catalysis to convert glucose into bio-based unsaturated nylon 6,6. An engineered strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, with the highest reported muconic acid titer of 559.5 mg L-1 in yeast, was used as the initial biocatalyst to convert glucose into muconic acid. Without any separation, muconic acid was further electrocatalytically hydrogenated to 3-hexenedioic acid with 94% yield, despite the presence of all the biogenic impurities. Bio-based unsaturated nylon 6,6 (unsaturated polyamide 6,6) was finally obtained by polymerization of 3-hexenedioic acid with hexamethylenediamine, demonstrating the integrated design of bio-based polyamides from glucose.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/eric_cochran/21/
This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article:Suastegui, Miguel, John E. Matthiesen, Jack M. Carraher, Nacu Hernandez, Natalia Rodriguez Quiroz, Adam Okerlund, Eric W. Cochran, Zengyi Shao, and Jean‐Philippe Tessonnier. "Combining metabolic engineering and electrocatalysis: Application to the production of polyamides from sugar." Angewandte Chemie International Edition 55, no. 7 (2016): 2368-2373., which has been published in final form at DOI: 10.1002/anie.201509653. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.