Abstract
Conventional food production is restricted by energy conversion efficiency of natural photosynthesis and demand for natural resources. Solar-driven artificial food synthesis from CO(2) provides an intriguing approach to overcome the limitations of natural photosynthesis while promoting carbon-neutral economy, however, it remains very challenging. Here, we report the design of a hybrid electrocatalytic-biocatalytic flow system, coupling photovoltaics-powered electrocatalysis (CO(2) to formate) with five-enzyme cascade platform (formate to sugar) engineered via genetic mutation and bioinformatics, which achieves conversion of CO(2) to C(6) sugar (L-sorbose) with a solar-to-food energy conversion efficiency of 3.5%, outperforming natural photosynthesis by over three-fold. This flow system can in principle be programmed by coupling with diverse enzymes toward production of multifarious food from CO(2). This work opens a promising avenue for artificial food synthesis from CO(2) under confined environments.