A team of German scientists have recently discovered an efficient way for living organisms to remove Carbon Dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Normally, plants, algae and other organisms, turn CO2 into food/fuel for their sustenance. The German team re-engineered this biological process making it around 25 per cent more efficient and two to three times faster. Plants and algae, are quite quick and effective in getting rid of CO2. They globally consume around 350 megatons of CO2 per year. All the absorption of CO2 is possible through some chemical process which is a series of chemical reactions called the Calvin cycle.
Simply stated, the Calvin cycle is a set of molecular transformation that gradually turns simple three-atom CO2 molecules into glucose, a complex sugar that we are familiar with. The Calvin process depends on a molecular tool called RuBisCO, a slow and sometimes uncertain action; mixing up CO2 with oxygen gas; that slows down the carbon absorption process. The new development of carbon absorbing cycle is much similar to Calvin cycle, but relies on a much faster and more efficient molecular material. It is an enzyme called ECR that does the job nine times faster. It is named as the CETCH cycle.
The CETCH cycle requires eleven steps to turn airborne CO2 into a chemical called Glyoxylate. Each of the eleven steps requires a molecule-transforming enzyme and each enzyme was carefully selected from enzymes found in the human body and gut bacteria. Others are taken from plants and microbes that live in oceans and on the surface of plants. Simply stated, the research team tested their CETCH cycle by mixing together all their enzymes with some chemical fuel and calculated how much CO2 was being removed from the air. They observed that their CETCH cycle was about 25 per cent more energy-efficient than the Calvin cycle, used by plants and algae.
Importantly, the glyoxylate chemical that the CETCH cycle produces is largely useless on its own. However it can actually be transformed into a wide variety of different chemicals that have many uses, including both bio-fuels and antibiotics. The research team hopes that the CETCH cycle could be genetically engineered into living organisms that can help reduce atmospheric CO2 faster, although it can produce many useful materials. It is not an easy task and will require a lot more study and further research. However the potential of developing further useful products and materials are a distinct possibility. We eagerly wait for the day, when this will be possible so that the CO2 waste of the breathing process will be the raw material for life-giving oxygen.
Engr. S. A. Mansoor
Gulshan, Dhaka
