Chemist Bruce Lipshutz is on a mission to spread the word about CoQ10.

If Bruce Lipshutz has his way, you may soon be buying bottles of water brimming with the life-sustaining coenzyme CoQ10 at your local Costco.

Lipshutz, a professor of chemistry at UCSB, is the principal author of “Transition Metal Catalyzed Cross-Couplings Going Green: in Water at Room Temperature,” which appeared in Aldrichimica Acta in September. In it, Lipshutz and postdoctoral researcher Subir Ghorai discuss how recent advances in chemistry can be used to make otherwise naturally insoluble compounds like CoQ10 soluble in water.

Present in every human cell, CoQ10 is synthesized by the body, although production decreases with age. The compound — much of which is found in the cell’s mitochondria — is essential for cellular respiration and ATP (adenosine triphosphate) production. “You wouldn’t last 30 minutes without CoQ10,” Lipshutz said.

Formulated into softgels that deliver the nutrient in various strengths, CoQ10 is readily available at drug stores, marketed as helping to provide a boost in energy as well as a healthy heart. But, Lipshutz noted, the body can absorb only 10 to 15 percent of CoQ10 in the softgel form. The challenge, he said, is “getting it into water, so we can get it into our mitochondria.”

That is quite a challenge, indeed, because CoQ10 is not water-soluble. The answer? Go nano.

“We do it with nano-micelle-forming technology,” Lipshutz said. He starts by putting a known, inexpensive molecule called PTS into water, which spontaneously forms a nanosphere about 25 nanometers (one nanometer is equal to one billionth of a meter) in diameter. This sphere has a lipophilic portion tied to a hydrophilic portion through a linker. The lipophilic portion, which is actually vitamin E, goes to the center. “The vitamin E portion associates in the middle with itself because it doesn’t have any solubility, any energy-lowering interactions, with the water around it,” Lipshutz said. “But the external or hydrophilic portion associates with water.

“When you add the CoQ, it says, ‘Where would I rather be?’ Since like dissolves like, the CoQ10 goes inside the micelle. It’s 25 nanometers and it’s crystal clear. And, it’s stable at room temperature.”

That’s nanotechnology. It delivers twice the amount of the compound into the bloodstream, and the concentration in water can be adjusted, he said. This approach can be applied to a broad range of nutraceuticals, including omega-3s, carotenoids such as lutein and beta-carotene, and resveratrol. “We can also take pharmaceuticals, like Taxol, an anti-tumor agent, and put them into just water or saline using this PTS,” he said.

By taking advantage of this micellar technology, synthetic chemistry can also be done inside the nano-containers. That translates into doing chemistry in pure water, and at room temperature. “That’s green chemistry,” Lipshutz said.