Producing starch from cellulose

(Scientists have successfully transformed cellulose into starch, which is a step forward in the prospect of creating food from plants that are not food crops.

A group of Virginia Institute of Technology researchers have succeeded in converting cellulose into starch, a process that has the potential to provide unprecedented nutrition from plant species that are not thought to belong to Food crops.

YH Percival Zhang, an associate professor of research biology systems at the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture and the Technical College, headed the research team that can help provide food for The growing global population is estimated to increase to 9 billion by 2050. Starch is one of the most important ingredients in the human diet and provides about 20-40% of the caloric intake. our body every day.

The study was published this week in the early version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cellulose is an additive in plant cell walls and is the most common carbohydrate on earth. This new development offers the potential opportunity that food can be produced from any type of plant, reducing the pressure on plants that need to cultivate on fertile soil and require fertilizer and use. pesticides and large amounts of irrigation water. The type of starch that Zhang's team produced is amylose , which is not broken during digestion and acts as an effective source of fiber. It has been shown to reduce the risk of obesity and diabetes.

'Besides serving as a food source, starch can be used to produce biodegradable and edible packaging , ' Zhang said. ' It can even serve as a high-density hydrogen storage source, helping solve problems related to hydrogen storage and distribution'.

Zhang used a novel process using cascade enzymes to convert cellulose into amylose starches.

"Cellulose and starch have the same chemical formula," Zhang said. "The difference lies in their chemical bonds. Our idea is to use an enzyme that causes a chain reaction (enzyme cascade) to break down the bonds in cellulose, allowing them to reshape into crystals. flour'.

The new approach takes cellulose from non-food plants, such as from corn stalks, transforms about 30% into amylose, and the remaining hydrolyzes into sugars suitable for ethanol production. . Corn stalks consist of corn stalks, leaves and shells after corn is harvested. However, this process is applicable to all cellulose of any other plant.

The biological process known as 'enzyme biotransformation and microbial fermentation' is easy to develop and expand into commercial production scale. This process is environmentally friendly because it does not require expensive equipment, does not use heat as well as chemical catalysts, and does not generate waste. Important enzymes fixed on magnetic nanoparticles can easily be recycled using a magnetic attraction.

Zhang designed the experiments and formed the concept of cellulose starch. Research is supported financially from various sources.