원문정보
초록
영어
Currently, chemicals come as a side product of the refining of petroleum to fuels. As biomass replaces petroleum as the fuel feedstock, chemicals will also come from biomass. Some chemicals will come from fermentation of the sugars in feedstocks; others will come from the lignin in biomass. Enzyme-catalyzed reactions could be a key to convert lignin to chemicals. Enzymes could fragment lignin and can convert the resulting the mixture of aromatic compounds into chemical intermediates. However, nature has not evolved enzymes for this purpose. To find suitable enzymes, we have adapted natural enzymes and engineered new ones for these reactions. Perhydrolases make peracetic acid for lignin fragmentation, while converting the aromatic compounds to chemicals can involve decarboxylations, additions to carbonyl compounds and hydroxylations. This lecture will review current progress in this area.