CO 2 Conversion into Long‐Chain Compounds

Combining renewable energy with the reduction of CO 2 as a building block provides sustainable access to value-added chemicals and fuels, allowing the transition toward a circular carbon economy. Despite recent achievements in either photocatalytic or electrocatalytic reduction of CO 2 into small commodity molecules, the synthesis of long-chain carbon compounds of higher economic value is challenging. To solve these limitations, an inspiring blueprint for CO 2 upcycling is initiated by integrating CO 2 photo/electrofixation with biological upgrading, which allows for the production of complex and energy-rich chemical compounds with high yield and selectivity. This chapter gives an overview of the current progress as well as the emerging trends in combining photo/electrochemistry with synthetic biology for CO 2 upcycling into long-chain compounds. Three typical biotic–abiotic systems are introduced in detail, with a focus on the description of design principles and an overview of recent advances and challenges. The introduction into the newly emergent interdisciplinary fields helps to close the knowledge gap between photo/electrochemistry and biochemistry and motivates multidisciplinary efforts toward the blueprint of the photo/electricity-driven manufacturing industry.