Biocatalysis for the application of CO₂ as a chemical feedstock

Biocatalysts, capable of efficiently transforming CO₂ into other more reduced forms of carbon, offer sustainable alternatives to current oxidative technologies that rely on diminishing natural fossil-fuel deposits. Enzymes that catalyse CO₂ fixation steps in carbon assimilation pathways are promising catalysts for the sustainable transformation of this safe and renewable feedstock into central metabolites. These may be further converted into a wide range of fuels and commodity chemicals, through the multitude of known enzymatic reactions. The required reducing equivalents for the net carbon reductions may be drawn from solar energy, electricity or chemical oxidation, and delivered in vitro or through cellular mechanisms, while enzyme catalysis lowers the activation barriers of the CO₂ transformations to make them more energy efficient. The development of technologies that treat CO₂-transforming enzymes and other cellular components as modules that may be assembled into synthetic reaction circuits will facilitate the use of CO₂ as a renewable chemical feedstock, greatly enabling a sustainable carbon bio-economy.