Combining Metabolic Engineering and Electrocatalysis: Application to the Production of Polyamides from Sugar

Biorefineries aim to convert biomass into a spectrum of products ranging from biofuels to specialty chemicals. To achieve economically sustainable conversion, it is crucial to streamline the catalytic and downstream processing steps. In this work, a route that combines bio‐ and electrocatalysis to convert glucose into bio‐based unsaturated nylon‐6,6 is reported. An engineered strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was used as the initial biocatalyst for the conversion of glucose into muconic acid, with the highest reported muconic acid titer of 559.5 mg L−1 in yeast. Without any separation, muconic acid was further electrocatalytically hydrogenated to 3‐hexenedioic acid in 94 % yield despite the presence of biogenic impurities. Bio‐based unsaturated nylon‐6,6 (unsaturated polyamide‐6,6) was finally obtained by polymerization of 3‐hexenedioic acid with hexamethylenediamine.