Solar-driven sugar production directly from CO₂ via a customizable electrocatalytic-biocatalytic flow system

Conventional food production is restricted by energy conversion efficiency of natural photosynthesis and demand for natural resources. Solar-driven artificial food synthesis from CO₂ 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 (CO₂ to formate) with five-enzyme cascade platform (formate to sugar) engineered via genetic mutation and bioinformatics, which achieves conversion of CO₂ to C₆ 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 CO₂. This work opens a promising avenue for artificial food synthesis from CO₂ under confined environments.