创新背景

随着人们对光合作用的不断深入认识，能源转化和光合作用的交叉作用进入科技视野，光合作用为解决温室气体和清洁新能源挖掘提供出路，人们研发了人工光合作用技术。科学家仿效自然界的光合作用，利用纳米大小的光感应材料将光能转换成电能，产生氧化还原酶反应就是人工光合作用技术。它可以完成碳固定，把无机物转化为有机物，利用光能生成精密化学物质，帮助更好地利用能源和保护环境。

创新过程

2016年，德国马克斯·普朗克陆地微生物所教授Tobias J`Erb教授带领团队开发了一种开发了一种人工碳固定方案，称为Cetch循环，可以借助细菌酶其他多种生物酶促进二氧化碳转化为有机物，实现人工光合作用技术制造叶绿体。在此基础上，马克斯·普朗克陆地微生物所和法国波尔多大学合作组成团队进一步研究人造叶绿体，成果《具有天然和合成部分的叶绿体模拟物中的光动力 CO2 固定》于2020年5月8日发表在《科学》上。

研究从菠菜细胞中提取天然捕光的类囊体膜，将纳米微流控技术与菠菜植物的天然光合膜结合起来。在以往碳固定经验基础上，构建装置产出仿叶绿体微流体液滴，液滴带有叶绿体光合作用的基本功能和特征。通过菠菜中的微流体和类囊体膜触发多项光驱动等物合成任务，令仿叶绿体液滴在小空间内结合天然和合成成分，进一步功能化生成适合复杂生物合成反应的场所。

研究人员表示，通过对人造叶绿体微滴进行编程，可以实现改进的或新的光合过程，其应用范围从小分子或药物合成到用于隔离环境碳的人造生物系统。利用封装技术能够生产成百上千个细胞大小的隔室，它们可以彼此独立地运行。这为标准化的具有催化活性的微反应隔室的批量生产开辟了道路，将来可用于不同的生物技术应用。

人造叶绿体从环境中快速捕获二氧化碳，利用光将其固定，帮助进一步转化为燃料和药物的有机成分，促进碳循环整合。此次研究表明，人造叶绿体可以固定二氧化碳并进行光合作用实现无污染碳循环，并且利用新技术批量自动化生产人工叶绿体。这是一种替代性生物资源方案，未来可以用于生物科技、能源科学甚至材料科学，以人工合成产物在微观规模实现提到。

创新关键点

纳米技术和生物细胞交叉融合实现人造叶绿体并完成批量生产替代。

Artificial chloroplasts help convert carbon dioxide into organic matter

In 2016, Professor Tobias J`Erb, a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Germany, led a team to develop an artificial carbon fixation scheme, called the Cetch cycle, which can promote carbon dioxide conversion with the help of bacterial enzymes and other biological enzymes. For organic matter, artificial photosynthesis technology is used to manufacture chloroplasts. On this basis, the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology and the University of Bordeaux, France, formed a team to further study artificial chloroplasts. The result "Light-powered CO2 fixation in a chloroplast mimic with natural and synthetic parts" was published on May 8, 2020 Published in Science.
To study the extraction of natural light-harvesting thylakoid membranes from spinach cells, the nano-microfluidics technology was combined with the natural photosynthetic membranes of spinach plants. Based on previous carbon fixation experience, a device was constructed to produce chloroplast-like microfluidic droplets with the basic functions and characteristics of chloroplast photosynthesis. The microfluidics and thylakoid membranes in spinach trigger multiple light-driven synthesis tasks, allowing the chloroplast-like droplets to combine natural and synthetic components in a small space, and further functionalize them to generate sites suitable for complex biosynthetic reactions.
The researchers say that by programming artificial chloroplast droplets, improved or new photosynthetic processes can be achieved, with applications ranging from small molecule or drug synthesis to artificial biological systems for sequestering environmental carbon. Encapsulation technology enables the production of hundreds to thousands of cell-sized compartments that can operate independently of each other. This opens the way for the mass production of standardized catalytically active microreaction compartments that could be used in different biotechnological applications in the future.
Artificial chloroplasts rapidly capture carbon dioxide from the environment, fix it using light, help further convert it into organic components for fuels and medicines, and promote carbon cycle integration. This study shows that artificial chloroplasts can fix carbon dioxide and perform photosynthesis to achieve a pollution-free carbon cycle, and use new technologies to automate the production of artificial chloroplasts in batches. This is an alternative biological resource solution, which can be used in biotechnology, energy science and even materials science in the future, and can be realized at the micro-scale as synthetic products.