06-03-2026
In the photo: Cristiano Mota
A team of researchers from the Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit | UCIBIO at NOVA FCT, in collaboration with researchers from ITQB-NOVA, has discovered how a natural, highly efficient enzyme captures and reduces carbon dioxide (CO₂). This discovery will enable the development of more effective industrial catalysts for carbon capture and the production of sustainable fuels, which are essential in the fight against climate change. By combining structural biology, enzymology and protein engineering, physics and computational modelling, the team has been able to reveal how this biological system works with unprecedented detail.
The study, published in the prestigious scientific journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, reveals for the first time the path taken by CO₂ through “channels” inside the protein to a kind of “molecular waiting room”. It is in this space that the gas is temporarily held before being converted into a molecule capable of storing energy and serving as a basis for sustainable fuels and materials. This mechanism paves the way for a new generation of carbon capture technologies and sustainable fuel production.
The study was coordinated by Maria João Romão and Cristiano Mota, researchers at UCIBIO at NOVA FCT. The first authors are Guilherme Vilela-Alves from UCIBIO at NOVA FCT and Rita Rebelo Manuel, supervised by Inês Cardoso Pereira from ITQB-NOVA.
Reducing CO₂ levels in the atmosphere is undoubtedly one of today’s greatest scientific and environmental challenges. Although industrial technologies to capture and convert CO₂ are being developed, nature has been carrying out this chemical transformation for billions of years using enzymes. Some microorganisms use specialized enzymes as biological tools to transform CO₂ into value-added products.
“Understanding in atomic detail how these enzymes work and guide CO₂ inside them gives us the fundamental knowledge needed to design more efficient technologies,” explain Maria João Romão and Cristiano Mota, UCIBIO researchers and coordinators of this study. “This discovery directly inspires the development of new artificial catalysts for industrial carbon capture and clean energy production.”
Using advanced X-ray crystallography techniques at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France, the researchers were able to visualize how molecules of different gases move inside the enzyme. Inside the enzyme, the discovery was surprising: CO₂ is guided through internal tunnels to a small cavity next to the active site, described by the researchers as a “molecular waiting room”. By strategically holding CO₂ in this spot, the enzyme concentrates the molecule near the reaction zone, ensuring a much faster and more efficient process.
In short, after extensive experimentation and analysis, the researchers found that the enzyme has evolved an intelligent structural strategy: it concentrates the substrate (CO₂) as close as possible to the reaction site, significantly increasing the efficiency of the whole process. The discovery of this smart efficiency mechanism opens new technological possibilities to develop improved enzymes for industrial carbon capture, create nature-inspired catalysts for green fuel production, and design new sustainable technologies based on biological principles.
This research also involved scientists from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and Université Grenoble Alpes/CNRS/CEA (France), as well as from the Jerzy Haber Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow (Poland), reinforcing the international and multidisciplinary nature of the study.
In the photo: Maria João Romão e Guilherme Vilela-Alves (by João Lima/NOVA FCT)
