Chemical Synthesis of Food
John Meacham
of CO2 and waste hydrogen from electrolosis back into oxygen and water
using only energy as an input, such as the Sabatier Reaction[1] and
the Bosch Reaction[2]. Given a suitable energy source, we could keep a
life support system going indefinitely and relatively reliably
(compared to depending on external shipments or a photobioreactor)
when it comes to breathable air and water.
So, my question is, can we produce food via a similar chemical batch
process? Something that is currently feasable I mean. From reading
about those reactions, it seems that the main requirement is that we
need to consume the pure carbon (deposited as graphite) byproduct, And
at various points can extract water, methane, and hydrogen if needed
and we can use catalysts of course (that are not consumed). I am
thinking just providing bulk energy, vitamins and minerals may need to
be packed along or cultured in bioreactors, but that requires a whole
lot less space/mass than shipping the bulk of food that a human
needs.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosch_reaction
Andrew Plotkin
>
> So, my question is, can we produce food via a similar chemical batch
> process?
Sure. The catalyst you're looking for is called "zucchini".
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
John F. Eldredge
> Here, John Meacham <john.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> So, my question is, can we produce food via a similar chemical batch
>> process?
>
> Sure. The catalyst you're looking for is called "zucchini".
>
> --Z
You might be able to produce simple carbohydrates via chemical batch
processes; producing proteins, not to mention vitamins, will be
considerably more complicated. A combination of selected microbial
cultures and conventional plant cultivation seems like a more practical
solution, at least in the near future.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Wayne Throop
: So, my question is, can we produce food via a similar chemical batch
: process? Something that is currently feasable I mean. From reading
: about those reactions, it seems that the main requirement is that we
: need to consume the pure carbon (deposited as graphite) byproduct, And
: at various points can extract water, methane, and hydrogen if needed
: and we can use catalysts of course (that are not consumed). I am
: thinking just providing bulk energy, vitamins and minerals may need to
: be packed along or cultured in bioreactors, but that requires a whole
: lot less space/mass than shipping the bulk of food that a human needs.
Well, just off the top of my head, ignoring the issue of water and
assuming dehydrated food stores, and not a lot of physical labor, you're
talking a half-kilogra per person per day. So in a year, that's less than
200 kilograms. So for five people, you'll need to ship a ton per year.
So, your food production widget needs to have a pretty small mass
in order to compete with that, until you get into long trips.
(I may have dropped a decimal point or something in the above
arithmetic, or made a mento, but still, even if I'm off by a factor
of ten, your magic food factory had better be small.)
In any event, the simplest way to produce basic food (ie, carbohydrates,
lipids, and proteins) from energy and waste is probably use of some form
of algae or somesuch. Knitting together complicated molecules is what
biological processes specialize in, more or less, and you're not really
going to do better than that in the near future (absent the Singularity).
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
John Meacham
> Here, John Meacham <john.meac...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > So, my question is, can we produce food via a similar chemical batch
> > process?
>
> Sure. The catalyst you're looking for is called "zucchini".
Yeah, I was specifically interested in a chemical process. Life is too
fragile, month 9 and a virus or invasive species wipes out your colony
and you're hosed. Plus the space requirements are a lot larger as life
generally needs a lot of water, having to grow in its 'hydrated'
state.
A chemical process could theoretically scale down, perhaps to a one-
person module (assuming a power source exists) and also, might
plausably be built from raw materials. A Bosch reactor is a suitably
hot container with a nickel catalyst and a way to feed the raw gasses
in. Given a few months to experiment, random salvaged raw materials,
and the desperation of a failing life support system, it seems
plausable to build one just from the info on the wikipedia page. Being
able to synthesize algae from scratch isn't really an option.
alie...@gmail.com
"Most of the natural amino acids, hydroxyacids, purines,
pyrimidines, and sugars have been produced in variants of the Miller
experiment."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
Polymerizing the sugars into starch, amino acids into proteins,
making vitamins and so on is merely a matter of engineering. ;>)
Mark L. Fergerson
Wayne Throop
: Yeah, I was specifically interested in a chemical process. Life is too
: fragile, month 9 and a virus or invasive species wipes out your colony
: and you're hosed.
So, keep some of the food-algae freeze dried, or even digitized as
dna sequences with some decanting equipment, and when the virus strikes,
sterilize all the bioreactors and restart the culture. Of course, you
also ensure you have a year's supply of dehydreated supplies (one ton
per five people) to tide you over any restart or other disaster, and
replenish it if it gets depleted.
: Plus the space requirements are a lot larger as life generally needs a
: lot of water, having to grow in its 'hydrated' state.
One bioreactor (or a small number of them) full of water, which is
constantly recycled, doesn't seem all that extravagant. And if any
plausible non-biological synthesis doesn't occur in water anyways,
I'd be very very surprised.
: A chemical process could theoretically scale down, perhaps to a one-
: person module (assuming a power source exists) and also, might
: plausably be built from raw materials.
Why would you think that was plausible? Sure, a small pack of algae
might work, but absent magic nanotech, what makes a small machine capable
of doing a useful volume of synthesis of complex chemicals plausible?
Does a small machine exist that makes even so simple a thing as, methanol,
currently exist? That out-performs bacterial synthesis, I mean.
: A Bosch reactor is a suitably hot container with a nickel catalyst and
: a way to feed the raw gasses in. Given a few months to experiment,
: random salvaged raw materials, and the desperation of a failing life
: support system, it seems plausable to build one just from the info on
: the wikipedia page.
But a) are personal Bosch reactors commonplace, and b) I don't think you're
going to get proteins that way. And Tom Swift and his Solar Power Satellite
(or whatever the title was; the one with the huge spaceborn solar collectors),
and the fact that he synthesized jello from sunlight alone via E=mc^2
notwithstanding, I don't think it's even within several orders of magnitude
as easy to do as Tom portrayed it.
: Being able to synthesize algae from scratch isn't
: really an option.
But then, banging rockstogether on an airless moon or asteroid to get
proteins isn't really an option, either. In fact, of the available
options, I'd say "pack plenty of algae starter cultures" is very very
high on the list.
I'm sorry, but Campbell's "The Moon is Hell" notwithstanding, if you're
left on the moon with nothing but metals and some water, carbon dioxide,
and nitrogen, you're going to starve. Absent the Singularity, of course,
but in that case you're left with a Corucopia Nanoculture too. WIth
lots of self-assembling spares.
Or, put briefly, "so don't start from scratch".
Wayne Throop
: "Most of the natural amino acids, hydroxyacids, purines,
: pyrimidines, and sugars have been produced in variants of the Miller
: experiment."
:
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
:
: Polymerizing the sugars into starch, amino acids into proteins,
: making vitamins and so on is merely a matter of engineering. ;>)
True. And separating usable stuff from the sludge, and what to *do*
with all the sludge you mainly get, and doing this all on a scale to
feed people, is currently an *unsolved* matter of engineering. Sure,
Tom Swift notes that he can synthesize protons, neutrons and electrons
in an accelerator... and it's a small matter of engineering (that he
solves in an idle few hours) to get lime jell-o from that. However,
I don't think this is exactly *plausible*.
Tim Little
> So, my question is, can we produce food via a similar chemical batch
> process?
As far as I know, using direct chemical processes to make edible food
is not currently feasible. There are plenty of "synthetic" foodstuffs
produced today, but when you trace them back you find out that most of
the raw materials came from biological sources. Mainly because they
are much cheaper, and also less likely to produce poisons via
undesirable side-reactions.
> I am thinking just providing bulk energy, vitamins and minerals may
> need to be packed along or cultured in bioreactors, but that
> requires a whole lot less space/mass than shipping the bulk of food
> that a human needs.
Minerals are not likely to pose a chemical challenge compared with
bulk foodstuffs and vitamins.
- Tim
Don M
However why, in some postulated future would it ever be easier or
better to do direct chemical synthesis than to use some sort of simple
organism to generate food? A "meat in a vat" style solution, or a
single celled version of the sort of food plants we use today, only
grown in a vat. This just seems vastly simpler than chemically
synthesizing food from scratch. If we genetically engineer some simple
single celled critters, "food yeast" or "food algae" seem very
plausible indeed.
Wayne Throop
: However why, in some postulated future would it ever be easier or
: better to do direct chemical synthesis than to use some sort of simple
: organism to generate food?
Possibly, there would be some way to get better efficiency than by natural
photosynthesis. It actually captures relatively little of the energy
in sunlight into the sugars and/or whtnot that get produced. Mind you,
I don't know that a better method is currently known. Just that, it
seems in principle, it might be possible.
Mike Williams
>So, my question is, can we produce food via a similar chemical batch
>process? Something that is currently feasable I mean.
The process of creating organic chemicals from a set of inorganic
chemicals without the aid of biological processes is called "Total
Synthesis". It is historically significant because before 1828 many
scientists believed that organic chemicals required "vital force" which
was not present in inorganic chemicals.
Glucose was one of the early organic chemicals to be totally
synthesised. Amino acids, fats and vitamins can now also be totally
synthesised. In many cases, such total synthesis procedures are of
mainly academic value, since it tends to be much more economic to use
biological processes.
--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure
John F. Eldredge
In seventh grade, one of my science-class tests asked for the definition
of "organic chemical". I gave the definition from the textbook, "a
chemical compound containing carbon." The teacher marked the answer as
incorrect. When I pointed out the relevant line in the textbook, she
said that she disagreed with that definition. Her definition (which I
don't recall her ever stating prior to the test) was "a chemical produced
by biological means, which we don't yet know how to produce by non-
biological means." I asked her if this meant sugar was not an organic
chemical; she replied that it was an organic chemical up until scientists
figured out how to make it by chemical means, but isn't an organic
chemical now, even if the batch of sugar in question had been produced by
a plant.
Chuk Goodin
<john.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
>So, my question is, can we produce food via a similar chemical batch
>process? Something that is currently feasable I mean. From reading
>about those reactions, it seems that the main requirement is that we
>need to consume the pure carbon (deposited as graphite) byproduct, And
>at various points can extract water, methane, and hydrogen if needed
>and we can use catalysts of course (that are not consumed). I am
>thinking just providing bulk energy, vitamins and minerals may need to
>be packed along or cultured in bioreactors, but that requires a whole
>lot less space/mass than shipping the bulk of food that a human
>needs.
I think Fred Pohl had some stories with CHON food. But realistically it
seems like you need either bioengineering or magical nanotech.
--
chuk
Chuk Goodin
Was that in science class or was it on a telepathy exam?
--
chuk
Erik Max Francis
> In seventh grade, one of my science-class tests asked for the definition
> of "organic chemical". I gave the definition from the textbook, "a
> chemical compound containing carbon." The teacher marked the answer as
> incorrect. When I pointed out the relevant line in the textbook, she
> said that she disagreed with that definition. Her definition (which I
> don't recall her ever stating prior to the test) was "a chemical produced
> by biological means, which we don't yet know how to produce by non-
> biological means." I asked her if this meant sugar was not an organic
> chemical; she replied that it was an organic chemical up until scientists
> figured out how to make it by chemical means, but isn't an organic
> chemical now, even if the batch of sugar in question had been produced by
> a plant.
Well, this _is_ one the colloquial meaning of the word _organic_, so
it's the difference between people understanding the everyday use of the
term vs. the technical term. Stupid for a teacher to ding you for it;
but it's a common misconception simply because average people use the
term differently.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either
alone would fail. -- John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
Wayne Throop
: Well, this _is_ one the colloquial meaning of the word _organic_, so
: term vs. the technical term. Stupid for a teacher to ding you for it;
: but it's a common misconception simply because average people use the
: term differently.
Well except that ime, if you're using "organic" to mean "produced by
organisms of some sort", a given compound doesn't change from organic to
inorganic just because some clever feller in a lab somewhere managed to
synthesize a sample of the same compound; the sample *you've* got still was
produced by an organism. Basically, the definition given upthread here
is very peculiar; it's neither a functional nor a historical property
of the compound. Indeed, it isn't a property of the physical sample of
the substance at all, so it's a bit odd as a label; not really good for
much in discussing the sample itself.
So really, seems to me the teacher was sort of incompetent and
wrong-headed, and you should demand your tuition back or something.
Erik Max Francis
Clearly she was thinking of the everyday term and then trying to
rationalize after-the-fact why she marked it wrong despite being
confronted with the fact that she clearly screwed up.
Joy Beeson
wrote:
> . . . it
> seems like you need either bioengineering or magical nanotech.
Sufficiently advanced nanotech is indistinguishable from
bioengineering.
--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
Wayne Throop
: Sufficiently advanced nanotech is indistinguishable from
: bioengineering.
That's probably the reason Hal Clement called his nanotech
"pseudolife" in "The Nitrogen Fix".
Harri Tavaila
> On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:35:17 -0700 (PDT), John Meacham
> <john.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>So, my question is, can we produce food via a similar chemical batch
>>process?
--- clip ---
>
> I think Fred Pohl had some stories with CHON food. But realistically
> it seems like you need either bioengineering or magical nanotech.
Source: http://davidszondy.com/future/Living/synthetic_food.htm
"If you thought food pills were bad, at least you never had to deal with
the horror of purely synthetic food. As part of a space experiment in
1965, twenty four men volunteered to be fed nothing but a food made from
pure chemicals for nineteen weeks. I should say that that twenty four
men started, but only fifteen finished. No, the other nine didn't
starve to death. The experiment proved quite successful from a medical
point of view and everyone who finished was perfectly healthy. It had
more to do with the fact that the "food" wasn't even as solid a meal as
a pill."
---
Same source, slightly later:
"Composition of an artificial diet entirely composed of purified
chemical compounds
Amino-acids
l-Lysine�ｿｽHCL 3.58 g
Sodium L-aspartate 6.40 g
l-Leucine 3.83 g
l-Threonine 2.42 g
l-Isoleucine 2.42 g
l-Proline 10.33 g
l-Valine 2.67 g
Glycine 1.67 g
l-Phenylalanine 1.75 g
l-Serine 5.33 g
l-Arginine�ｿｽHCL 2.58 g
l-Tyrosine ethyl ester�ｿｽHCL 6.83 g
l-Histidine�ｿｽHCL�ｿｽH20 1.58 g
l-Tryptophan 0.75 g
l-Methionine 1.75 g
l-Glutamine 9.07 g
l-Alanine 2.58 g
l-Cysteine ethyl ester�ｿｽHCL 0.92 g
Water-soluble vitamins
Thiamine.HCL 1.00 mg
d-Biotin 0.83 mg
Riboflavin 1.50 mg
Folic acid 1.67 mg
Pyridoxine.HCL 1.67 mg
Ascorbic acid 62.50 mg
Niacinamide 10.00 mg
Cyanocobalamin 1.67 mg
Inositol 0.83 mg
p-Aminobenzoic acid 416.56 mg
d-Calcium pantothenate 8.33 mg
Choline bitartrate 231.25 mg
Salts
Potassium iodide 0.25 mg
Potassium hydroxide 0.83 g
Manganous acetate 18.30 mg
Magnesium oxide 0.38 g
Zinc benzoate 2.82 mg
Sodium chloride 4.77 g
Cupric acetate 2.50 mg
Ferrous gluconate 0.83 g
Sodium glycerophosphate 1.67 mg
Calcium Chloride�ｿｽ2H2O 2.44 g
Ammonium molybdate�ｿｽ4H2O 5.23 g
Sodium benzoate 1.00 g
Carbohydrates
Glucose 555.0 g
Glucono-?-lactone 17.2 g
Fats and fat-soluble vitamins
Ethyl linoeate 2.0 g
?-Tocopherol acetate 57.29 mg
Vitamin A 3.64 mg
Menadione 4.58 mg
Vitamin D 0.057 mg"
H Tavaila
James Nicoll
>: Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid>
>: Sufficiently advanced nanotech is indistinguishable from
>: bioengineering.
>
>That's probably the reason Hal Clement called his nanotech
>"pseudolife" in "The Nitrogen Fix".
Also, I don't think the term nanotech had been coined.
That's a Drexlerism, isn't it? And if I recall his timeline
correctly, Drexler would still have been caught up in the whole
Space Colonies are Cool, Inevitable and Our Economic Scheme
For Funding Them is Nothing Like a Ponzi Scheme thing.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Brian Davis
>>> Sufficiently advanced nanotech is indistinguishable from
>>> bioengineering.
>>
>>That's probably the reason Hal Clement called his nanotech
>>"pseudolife" in "The Nitrogen Fix".
Doubtful. Clement used the term "pseudolife" because that's what it
was (he made up a term for a science he made up - bioengineering at a
deep level). Nanotech wasn't coined until 1974 (& not, evidently, by
Drexler), while Clement used pseudolife at least as early as 1950
("Needle")... before even Feynman kicked the whole thing off in 1959.
--
Brian Davis
Tim Little
> As part of a space experiment in 1965, twenty four men volunteered
> to be fed nothing but a food made from pure chemicals for nineteen
> weeks.
In that experiment, the chemicals were not synthesized from inorganic
compounds. They were commercially available compounds, almost
all derived from biological sources.
I'm sure many, perhaps even all of them could be synthesized from
scratch, but I'm also sure that a facility capable of producing them
would be immensely more expensive to build, maintain and operate than
farms, even in space. It would probably also be at least as fragile.
- Tim
Carey
Possibly chemosynthetic organisms could be supplied with energy from an
electrically driven chemical process as the basis of a food chain (much
like the chemical energy sources from the black smokers on the ocean
bottom).
Chemosynthetic organisms derive their energy from simple (usually
inorganic) reactions: CO2 + O2 + 4H2S -> CH2O + 4S + 3H2O, or similar
ones with ammonia and iron. It should be possible to come up with
efficient synthetic processes, driven ultimately by solar electricity,
to convert the metabolic products back to the original nutrients.
Now whether chemosynthetic organisms themselves are energetically
efficient, or have species with favorable culture properties I can't say.
Peter Knutsen
[...]
> Carbohydrates
> Glucose 555.0 g
> Glucono-?-lactone 17.2 g
Over half a kilogram of pure glucose per day? And eaten, rather than
taken intravenously?
And no starch?
Well, the glucose alone gives plenty energy for basic metabolism and a
nice amount of physical activity.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Harri Tavaila
$1472...@news.sunsite.dk:
> Harri Tavaila wrote:
> [...]
>> Carbohydrates
>> Glucose 555.0 g
>> Glucono-?-lactone 17.2 g
> [...]
>
> Over half a kilogram of pure glucose per day? And eaten, rather than
> taken intravenously?
Seems to have been the main energy source in this diet.
> And no starch?
Even better - no fibers or anything other than the basic chemicals needed
for survival. Several volunteers actually terminated the test early simply
because the diet was very, very dull.
Harri Tavaila
Greg Goss
>Stupid for a teacher to ding you for it;
>but it's a common misconception simply because average people use the
>term differently.
Sometimes teachers don't feel like negotiating with some of their
students. At one point, I went and fetched the chem instructor (who I
knew didn't have a class at that point) because the Biology 11
instructor had said something stupid and wasn't budging on the
correction.
The Bi teacher (actually I don't know his sexuality other than that he
was married) gave in and resumed the class. After class he pointed
out that "I don't want to give in to you. It's bad for you."
This from a Science teacher. He'd rather be wrong than give in to
certain students. He'd rather be TEACHING something wrong to a whole
class than correct it on the urging of a particular student.
Not that more than 3 of them could probably remember what Greg had
been arguing over 24 hours later. But correcting errors when
discovered is what science is all about.
--
apart from one noisy guy up in Canada, no-one wants
a three-cylinder tissue box on bicycle tires.