Cell-free alcoholic fermentation (Buchner's zymase)
Fermentación alcohólica sin células (zimasa de Buchner)
- Date
- 1897 · confidence high
- Place
- Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
- Credited to
- Eduard Buchner (with Hans Buchner and Martin Hahn)
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Buchner showed that a pressed yeast extract with no living cells fermented sugar into alcohol and CO2. This proved that fermentation is the work of enzymes and founded biochemistry and industrial enzymology.
The experiments began in his brother Hans's hygiene laboratory in Munich and were published from Tübingen; the coordinates are approximate.
What it led to
- end of the vitalism–mechanism debate on fermentation and the 1907 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- pathway opened to glycolysis (Harden, Embden, Meyerhof) and enzymology
- use of extracts and isolated enzymes in industry