Advances in biochemical engineering/biotechnology最新文献

Addressing global challenges of waste management demands innovative approaches to turn biowaste into valuable resources. This chapter explores the potential of microbial electrochemical technologies (METs) as an alternative opportunity for biowaste valorisation and resource recovery due to their potential to address limitations associated with traditional methods. METs leverage microbial-driven oxidation and reduction reactions, enabling the conversion of different feedstocks into energy or value-added products. Their versatility spans across gas, food, water and soil streams, offering multiple solutions at different technological readiness levels to advance several sustainable development goals (SDGs) set out in the 2030 Agenda. By critically examining recent studies, this chapter uncovers challenges, optimisation strategies, and future research directions for real-world MET implementations. The integration of economic perspectives with technological developments provides a comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and demands associated with METs in advancing the circular economy agenda, emphasising their pivotal role in waste minimisation, resource efficiency promotion, and closed-loop system renovation.

The conversion of agricultural wastes to value-added products has emerged as a pivotal strategy in fostering economic transformation. This chapter explores the transformative potential of converting agricultural residues into valued commodities that contribute to sustainability and economic growth. Agricultural wastes, often considered environmental liabilities, possess untapped benefits with great economic value. By employing innovative technologies, these wastes can be converted into a range of value-added products, such as substrates for agricultural production, biofuels, organic fertilizers, natural dyes, pharmaceuticals, and packaging materials. This approach not only mitigates the environmental impact of waste disposal but also provides new revenue streams for farmers, entrepreneurs and governments. In the economic landscape, the creation of value-added products from agricultural wastes serves as a catalyst for job creation, income generation, and rural development. Additionally, the development of a value chain around agricultural waste-derived products strengthens the resilience of the agricultural sector while diversifying the sources of income for farmers and reducing their dependence on major crops as income source. It also fosters innovation by encouraging the development of new technologies and industrial processes for efficient waste utilization and creation of novel products with diverse applications. From the environmental perspective, the conversion of agricultural waste to valuable products reduces environmental pollution, mitigates climate change, and improves the quality of life. The production of biofuels from agricultural residues has the potential to address energy security concerns, provide alternative and renewable energy sources, and allow for energy sufficiency. This chapter exposes the hidden economic potentials in agricultural wastes for farmers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and government to explore. The transformation of agricultural wastes into value-added products if fully harnessed will play a critical role in the economic transformation of many nations across the globe while addressing the environmental challenges that come with waste management and industrialization.

Organic raw materials are the renewable sources of substrates for our industries and for our microbial communities. As industrial, agricultural or forestry side streams, they are usually affordable if the process entities, equipment and protocols are properly designed. The microbial communities that are used as biocatalysts take care of the process development together with us or with the process team. Moreover, they constitute or shape the process to resemble the natural bioprocess as it takes place or occurs in nature and thus make it "Industry Like Nature®" - type of endeavor. As an ultimate result, we could make our industries increasingly 100% sustainable with the help of microbes. In case of food or forest industry side streams, this means fossil-free production of valuable chemicals, food and feed components, energy and gases, and soil improvement or organic fertilizers. The so-called "Finnoflag biorefinery" idea has been tested in many cases together with domestic and international colleagues and industries. In here, we attempt to share the basic thinking.

Microbes are the third major group of biospheric organisms after plants and animals. They are responsible for many natural circulations, including the rotation of elements. They return organic carbon for plants' use and dissolve minerals into organic cycles. Microbes contribute to the global gas and water balances. In animal digestion, they partake in the degradation and assimilation of nutrients. Typically, they act as communities where some strains are the most active at a given time point in the prevailing conditions. But they also live in a continuous state of succession, which precludes the maintenance of changeable balances. Whether functioning in soil, in our alimentary tract, or elsewhere, the micro-organisms decisively contribute to the restoration of various balances. As the microbiological scale differs significantly from our comprehension, we must nurture our understanding of the microbiome wherever it occurs. For example, one spoonful of yoghurt contains approximately as many bacterial cells as there are humans residing on Earth. Therefore, such organizational flexibility and interaction are the most advisable modes of operation in microbial biochemistry and biotechnological applications. As microbes tend to form communities, this modus operandi is worth instigating in our process industries and production technologies. The use of microbial mixed cultures most appropriately corresponds to the natural systems. As biocatalysts in human endeavours of biorefining and bioengineering, they have become the most utilizable and producible kind of microbial components. Cooperation with microbes is a prerequisite for the continuous development of sustainable industries and food and health production. The microbial communities can be used to prevent and clean up pollution. In the process design, the microbiological dynamic balances make the highest productivity, repeatability, controllability, and withstanding of entropy. Although their effects have been familiar to our societies, e.g. in the fermentation of foods, their total capacity remains to be put into service. Hopefully, this book could help turn the next page in the development.

In this study calculation over material and energy balances for bio-refinery product upgrading using membrane filtration (MF, UF, and RO), distillation, and ion-exchanger has been performed. Tests have been made with UF filtration in a pilot plant, separation tests made at lab with ion-exchanger and simulation using ASPEN plus simulator for distillation. Rough economic analysis has been made for the different solutions/techniques.

In the research of mixed microbial cultures, the numbers and identifications of individual strains are often fully or partially unknown. Their metabolic capabilities are also partially unpredictable, especially if the joint potential is to be understood. In these kinds of situations, deeper insight into the variable microbial communities cannot be obtained by genetic analysis only. Even more critical than the taxonomic aspect is usually the functional metabolic outcome of the mixed flora in question. The results from such studies as NMR (nucleic magnetic resonance) give a precise view from versatile angles into the biochemical activities during the multiparametric metabolic responses of the microflora as a whole.Originally, metabonomics was mainly used for the pathophysiological research of various microbes or for recording the genetic or biochemical modifications of mixed microflora. This approach offers a tool for monitoring changes in microscopic or otherwise confined ecosystems or multiple locations from which representative specimens are difficult to obtain. In microbiological studies, the research group can attain overall views on variable populations and their alterations in time and space.

There is a demand to remove CO2 from thermal plants to abate global warming. At the same time authorities demand treating wastewater to remove nitrogen and phosphorus and also to produce food. By combining algae farming at a power plant and using nutrients from the wastewater, actions to meet all these demands can be combined to a win-win situation. In this paper we make estimates what the dimensions and design criteria there would be for such an integrated system. The size of the algae farm will be significant. If placed in the sea, this may be feasible, but then storms must be considered. If we place in lakes, it is more competition for other uses that causes a problem. Combining with also greenhouses may be a possible solution. The biomass produced can be used directly as food or be processed by, e.g., fermentation to produce chemicals and methane (biogas).

In a microbiological biorefinery, microbial strains and communities, and their enzymes are used in processing side-streams into valuable products. Engineering and manufacturing of the related bioreactors and other equipment is crucial. Production processes should be engineered in a seamless collaboration, so that the equipment is optimally supporting the biorefining. In this chapter, various ways for educating microbiological biorefinery principles and operation for professionals are presented. In the recent years, this has taken place in classroom as well as hands-on, e.g., in biorefineries, laboratories and purification plants.

What is an unconventional organism in biotechnology? The γ-proteobacterium Shewanella oneidensis might fall into this category as it was initially established as a laboratory model organism for a process that was not seen as potentially interesting for biotechnology. The reduction of solid-state extracellular electron acceptors such as iron and manganese oxides is highly relevant for many biogeochemical cycles, although it turned out in recent years to be quite relevant for many potential biotechnological applications as well. Applications started with the production of nanoparticles and dramatically increased after understanding that electrodes in bioelectrochemical systems can also be used by these organisms. From the potential production of current and hydrogen in these systems and the development of biosensors, the field expanded to anode-assisted fermentations enabling fermentation reactions that were - so far - dependent on oxygen as an electron acceptor. Now the field expands further to cathode-dependent production routines. As a side product to all these application endeavors, S. oneidensis was understood more and more, and our understanding and genetic repertoire is at eye level to E. coli. Corresponding to this line of thought, this chapter will first summarize the available arsenal of tools in molecular biology that was established for working with the organism and thereafter describe so far established directions of application. Last but not least, we will highlight potential future directions of work with the unconventional model organism S. oneidensis.