Microbial biofilms: a concept for industrial catalysis?
Biofilm reactors have long been commercially used in the treatment of wastewater and off-gas. New opportunities are arising with the rapid expansion of our understanding of biofilm biology over the last few years. Biofilms have great potential as industrial workhorses for the sustainable production of chemicals because of their inherent characteristics of self-immobilization, high resistance to reactants and long-term activity, which all facilitate continuous processing. A variety of biofilm reactor configurations have been explored for productive catalysis and some reactors have been operated continuously for months. Sectors that might particularly benefit from this biofilm approach include synthetic chemistry (ranging from specialty to bulk chemicals), bioenergy, biologics and the food industry.
Rosche
Bettina
B
The University of New South Wales, School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. b.rosche@unsw.edu.au
Li
Xuan Zhong
XZ
Hauer
Bernhard
B
Schmid
Andreas
A
Buehler
Katja
K
D001419:Bacteria / Q000648:ultrastructure; D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D055162:Biocatalysis; D018441:Biofilms; D006801:Humans; D007218:Industrial Microbiology / Q000379:methods*