Chen Microbial Cell Factories 2012, 11:111

http://www.microbialcellfactories.com/content/11/1/111

COMMENTARY Open Access

New challenges and opportunities for industrial

biotechnology
Guo-Qiang Chen1,2*

Abstract
Industrial biotechnology has not developed as fast as expected due to some challenges including the emergences
of alternative energy sources, especially shale gas, natural gas hydrate (or gas hydrate) and sand oil et al. The
weaknesses of microbial or enzymatic processes compared with the chemical processing also make industrial
biotech products less competitive with the chemical ones. However, many opportunities are still there if industrial
biotech processes can be as similar as the chemical ones. Taking advantages of the molecular biology and
synthetic biology methods as well as changing process patterns, we can develop bioprocesses as competitive as
chemical ones, these including the minimized cells, open and continuous fermentation processes et al.
Keywords: Industrial biotechnology, Shale gas, Oil fields, PHB, Bioplastics, Biofuels, Bulk chemicals

The commercialization of industrial biotechnology is not 5. Bioprocessing is still not as effective as chemical
as fast as we expected. Originally, we believe that pro- processing, resulting in high cost of bio-products
duction of bulk chemicals including biofuels, polymeric (Table 1)
materials and chemical agents using microorganisms or 6. Bioprocessing that requires large amount of fresh
enzymes will provide low cost, environmentally friendly water has had increasing concerns in many water
products to partially replace petro-chemicals products shortage areas
[1]. However, this looks not so easy to materialize due to 7. The chemical industry is also evolving competitive in
the facts that: various ways including environmentally friendliness,
the use of renewable resources (biomass) for making
1. Petroleum does not rise in price too much after 2008 chemicals that are normally derived from petro-
financial crisis, other alternative energy sources, chemicals
especially shale gas, natural gas hydrate (or gas 8. The rapid development of C1 chemical engineering
hydrate) and sand oil, have been discovered in large products
amount and their exploitations are increasingly 9. Large amount of funding is not more directed to
moving toward a very competitive price; industrial biotechnology.
2. The exhaustion of petroleum seems to be a remote
reality Taking the example of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA),
3. Agriculture raw materials for bioprocessing are a biopolyester family that has been exploited to become
becoming increasingly costly an industrial value chain [2-4], PHA has not been able
4. Low cost raw material cellulose can not be easily to commercially produce in large scale due to the diffi-
used for microbial processes at least for the next culty to lower the production cost especially for their
5–10 years applications as bioplastics that are considered as bio-
degradable and bio-based despite the possibility of using
CO2 as substrate [5].
Correspondence: [email protected] To successfully commercialize PHA, we must keep
1
MOE Key Lab of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Department of working hard on the “high volume and low price” strat-
Biological Science and Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua-
Peking Center for Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China egy by developing better PHA production strains and
2
Center for Nano and Micro Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, cost competitive processes. While for some special
China

© 2012 Chen; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Table 1 Comparison of industrial biotechnology and chemical technology

Items Industrial biotechnology Chemical technology
Reaction Time Slow: production takes days Fast: production takes hours
Substrates Agricultural products Petroleum or its derivatives
Conversion of substrates to products Low: e.g. PHB/glucose  33 wt% PHA/fatty acids  60 wt% High: e.g. Polyethylene/ethylene  100%
Medium Water Mostly organic solvents
Consumption of water A lot Less
Reaction conditions 30-40°C, normal pressure Generally >100°C, High Pressures
Product concentration Low: Several mg to 100 g/L Very high
Product recovery cost Very high Low to medium
Processing Normally discontinuous one Can be continuous
Sterilization Necessary No need
Production facility cost Very high Low to high (explosive proof)
Waste water Not toxic, easier to treat Generally toxic, difficult to treat

applications, “low volumes and high price” can be ap- and low price” products (Table 2). At the same time,
plied, such as products to be used for biomedical pur- bio-processing should try to become as similar as the
poses, specialty polymers [6,7], chiral monomers, drug chemical industry, including the need to develop con-
development and special applications et al. [8,9]. And tinuous and open fermentation processes for e.g. making
this is generally true in order to survive this competitive biofuels and PHA bioplastics [10-12]. Also, from now
environment for industrial biotechnology, it must be and toward a distant future, foods are still important for
competitive with the chemical industry. Let’s see what feeding the world population, the development of bio-
we can do to make this happen. In addition, it is also im- processes based on kitchen waste or activated sludge as
portant to be able to develop processes that combined substrates may also be an important option for a com-
the advantages of chemical industry to supplement the petitive industrial biotechnology (Table 2).
weaknesses of industrial biotechnology (Table 1). Combination of bio- and chemical processes can offer
The newly emerging synthetic biology approaches may a lot of advantages including bio-based (CO2 reduction)
offer some clues for developing competitive technology and fast reaction. Typical example includes the bio-
for industrial biotechnology to produce “high volume production of lactic acid from anaerobic fermentation

Table 2 Problems to be solved for making industrial biotechnology competitive to chemical technology
Problems Weakness of Industrial biotechnology Possible solutions
Microorganisms grow too slow Slow: production takes days Minimizing the microbial cells
Microbes can not use mixed substrates Agricultural products are mostly mixed Assembling pathways that can metabolize
substrates mixed substrates
Low conversion of substrates to products Cell metabolism turn substrates into Removing unnecessary pathways consuming
CO2, H2O & byproducts substrates
High Consumption on fresh H2O Fresh H2O as medium et al. Utilization of sea water for cell growth
Microbial cells grow to very low density Product concentration low: Several Minimizing oxygen demand for aerobic cells &
mg to 100 g/L reducing Quorum sensing effects
Discontinuous processing Contamination concerns Developing continuous process
Sterilization costs high High pressed steam Contamination resisting strains grown in
open systems
High energy demand for intensive aeration Aerobic microorganisms need a lot of Developing anaerobic bioprocesses
oxygen for growth
Difficulty to control the bio-processes Complicated cellular metabolisms Artificial cells that contain only necessary
metabolic pathways
One product by one microbial organism Different organism has different strength. Development of a platform organism for
many products
Organisms consume food related products Food for Fuels (Chemicals) Kitchen wastes or activated sludge as substrates
Production facility costly Costly materials and sensors The use of carbon steel facilities et al.
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that is very effective and has only one single lactic acid
product, and chemical polymerization of lactide to poly-
lactide (PLA), a biodegradable green plastic [2,13]. The
PLA story is a successful combination of bio- and chem-
ical advantages. Others like succinic acid and 1,4-butanol
bio-production and their copolymerization are under in-
tensive R&D [2,13]. However, at the end, commercial
successes have to be dependent on economy.
Competing interests
The author declares that he has no competing interests.

Acknowledgements
The author of this article is supported by grants from the State Basic Science
Foundation 973 (Grant No. 2012CB725201) and State Industrialization Project
(Grant No. 2012BAD32B02).

Received: 13 August 2012 Accepted: 14 August 2012

Published: 20 August 2012

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