Chinese whispers in the lab

[shkrobius]

...Sucralose is an artificial sweetener. It was accidentally discovered in 1976 by Leslie Hough and Shashikant Phadnis at Queen Elizabeth College. While researching ways to use sucrose as a chemical intermediate in non-traditional areas, Phadnis was told to test a chlorinated sugar compound. Phadnis thought that Hough asked him to taste it, and so

Comments

[shkrobius]

Oh, they all did it. Most of the sweeteners were discovered because chemists noticed during the supper meal that they fingers were sweet.

I was thinking recently, that our descendants may literally have water whether they like it or not. Acesulfame is not broken down by bacteria, plants, or animals and so it accumulates in the wastewater and gets into the environment. I've read that in most of the US (minus the Great Lakes) the reservoires (especially, with the reclaimed water) are already contaminated with acesulfamate to the tune of 10 ug/L, and that in Switzerland the tap water (! - that's after ion exchange!) contains 2 ug/L. That's after just 50 years of use of this sweetener in carbonated drinks! As it is >300 times sweeter than sugar, in a few centuries it may reach the level when water would taste slightly sweet!

[i_eron]

What a sweet future. I guess if its concentration will really rise, some microbes will learn to eat it.

[shkrobius]

Perhaps not. Saccharin has been around even longer, but they did not learn to digest it. The -N-SO2- bond is not easy to break making energy in the process. I am making ionic liquids that are based on such sweeteners for something else (they are ionic, after all), and I had an idea that I can suggest treating the wastewater to recover these lost sweeteners and turn them into something useful. My clever wife tells me I should paint the most horrifying picture of the sweet-water world of the future, using the blackest of imagery, and then promise to save the world from the menace in 20 years, which will be about my retirement age. In vain did I that people would not be scared by my sweet water Armageddon having being completely surrounded by the salty one from the time immemorial... Haven't people always imagined Eden as a place where milk and honey flows? Who am I to stop the dreams coming true?

[i_eron]

But the concentrations were low. Once they rise sufficiently, the reward for inventing such an ability will be huge. Also, even if this bond is broken with net energy loss, the microbe can then enjoy the tasty hydrocarbon bit.

Perhaps you may add the microbe to your sweet Armageddon scenario. Surely, if nothing will be done, a superbug will eventually arise in all our waters. It will eat acesulfame and grow, it will be everywhere. And when the acesulfame will be finished, the angry superbug will attack everyone around, from land and sea. Our civilization will be finished by unthinkable diseases. Anyone would prefer a scientist to remove acesulfame from water, rather than cultivating a sweet-tooth Nemesis for all humanity.

BTW, I was always confused by this milk-and-honey Eden image. Didn't they think it through? The honey will be all covered with insects, ugh! And, even more horribly, the milk skin. It must form little white islands on the milk rivers, yuck!

[shkrobius]

That's my thinking exactly: it gotta be synthetic milk and honey, otherwise it would not stand a chance...

Acesulfame does not look like something worth cleaving, because N-CO and N-S bonds are very strong. The only reaction I remember is deamidation of asparagine that invoves a cyclical imide, it is then oxidized to --NH and HO2C-. This requires energy and it is done for carboxymethylation. Getting energy FROM the imides looks like the losing proposition to me. Perhaps the best it can do is to use it in some chemistry, e.g. Gabriel synthesis. But that's brand-new in microbial chemistry. Perhaps it would require very long time to figure out...

[i_eron]

But the milk-and-honey dream was by people struggling to feed their children. They clearly dreamed of its nutritional value, not just the esthetic one

[shkrobius]

No worries, I am working on it...