13 August 2022

Rubisco and Climate Change

Serious question, to which I have no idea of the answer. 

Thanks mostly to the extremely ancient enzyme Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (rubisco), plants convert atmospheric CO2 and water to organic molecules and oxygen, but not particularly efficiently. There is already serious research into modifying rubisco to create an artificial enzyme that does this much more efficiently, potentially purely chemically. (I.e., in a manufacturing plant rather than a plant-plant). Could this technology actually work to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere on a huge scale and be a significant part of the solution to global climate change? 

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