Electrification of Biotechnology: Quo Vadis?

Electrification of Biotechnology: Quo Vadis? Adv Biochem Eng Biotechnol. 2018 Sep 29;: Authors: Holtmann D, Harnisch F Abstract Electrobiotechnology has come a long way and has gained much interest among researchers all over the world. In the previous chapters of this book, an abundance of successful developments of lab-scale electrobiosynthesis and their underlying fundamentals are described. Thereby the individual needs and lines of research are highlighted. In this final chapter we will try to shed light on the overall performance of electrobiosynthetic processes with regard to their technological maturity, as well as the potential ecological and economic incentives for their industrial implementation.The evaluation of technical maturity, in particular, clearly demonstrates that electrobiosynthesis is still in its infancy. Bridging the "valley of death" between promising lab-scale results and first industrial applications as a market opener can only be achieved by the joint efforts of researchers from different disciplines in academia and industry, as well as by public funding and venture capital.Unfortunately, among other factors, the low degree of technical maturity hampers ecological evaluation, which so far has been limited to a small number of complete life cycle assessments. Therefore, we suggest using simplified evaluation tools (e.g., the environmental E-factor) to at least acquire clues about different parameters that inf...
Source: Advances in Biochemical Engineering Biotechnology - Category: Biotechnology Authors: Tags: Adv Biochem Eng Biotechnol Source Type: research