Oxidoreductases are an important class of enzymes due to their unique chemo-, regio-, and stereoselectivities compared to conventional chemical synthesis. Among all known oxidoreductases, since almost 80% of them are nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) dependent enzymes, the efficient regeneration of NADH is of particular interest for both academic and industrial applications. Electrochemical regeneration of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) is an attractive and promising route since the price of electricity is low and the electrochemical reaction can be easily controlled via the electrode potential. However, the application of the electrochemical approach to industrial scale production is still limited by the intrinsic properties of classic electrodes, leading to local environmental changes caused by diffusion limitations.

In the recent published work titled "Bulk electrocatalytic NADH cofactor regeneration with bipolar electrochemistry" in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., researchers propose to employ a dispersion of electrocatalytically active modified microparticles in the bulk of a bipolar electrochemical cell. In this way, redox reactions occur simultaneously on all of these individual microelectrodes without the need of a direct electrical connection. Enzymatically active 1,4-NADH is electroregenerated at the negatively polarized face of the particles. The efficiency of the system can be fine-tuned by controlling the electric field in the reaction compartment and the number of dispersed microelectrodes. This wireless bioelectrocatalytic approach opens up very interesting perspectives for electroenzymatic synthesis in the bulk phase.

This paper was featured in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. and selected as the front cover. In the front cover picture, the symbol of ‘Henan University 1912’ appeared as a planet in the universe. The PhD student Chunhua Zhang is the first author, Prof. Lin Zhang and Prof. Alexander Kuhn are the co-corresponding authors of this paper.

Cover link: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202116137

Paper link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202111804