Industrial protein
Industrial
protein
Industrial
protein processing covers a range of applications from food science to
pharmaceuticals, but the common element is the need to ensure protein viability
through processing, formulation, storage and delivery. For the food industry,
this may involve using Maroon technology to help protect dairy and meat
proteins during drastic temperature changes characteristic of various
production steps or extending shelf life once delivered to market. As the
pharmaceutical industry moves increasingly towards protein and biomolecular
therapies, the efficacy of these products will depend on maintaining their
proper conformation during processing and storage. Synthetic protein chaperones
developed by Maroon have the capability to provide this critical support role
for the next generation of drugs.
White biotechnology The application of biotechnology to industrial production holds many promises for sustainable development, but many products still have to pass the test of economic viability Giovanni Frazzetto |
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For tens of thousands of years, humans relied on
nature to provide them with all the things they needed to make themselves
more comfortable. They wove clothes and fabrics from wool, cotton or silk,
and dyed them with colours derived from plants and animals. Trees provided
the material to build houses, furniture and fittings. But this all changed
during the first half of the twentieth century, when organic chemistry
developed methods to create many of these products from oil. Oil-derived
synthetic polymers, coloured with artificial dyes, soon replaced natural
fibres in clothes and fabrics. Plastics rapidly replaced wood and metals in
many consumer items, buildings and furniture. However, biology may be about
to take revenge on these synthetic, petroleum-based consumer goods. Stricter
environmental regulations and the growing mass of non-degradable synthetics
in land-fills have made biodegradable products appealing again. Growing
concerns about the dependence on imported oil, particularly in the USA, and
the awareness that the world's oil supplies are not limitless are additional
factors prompting the chemical and biotechnology industries to explore
nature's richness in search of methods to replace petroleum-based synthetics.
An entire branch of biotechnology, known as 'white biotechnology', is devoted to this. It uses living cells—from yeast, moulds, bacteria and plants—and enzymes to synthesize products that are easily degradable, require less energy and create less waste during their production. This is not a recent development: in fact, biotechnology has been contributing to industrial processes for some time. For decades, bacterial enzymes have been used widely in food manufacturing and as active ingredients in washing powders to reduce the amount of artificial surfactants. Transgenic Escherichia coli are used to produce human insulin in large-scale fermentation tanks. And the first rationally designed enzyme, used in detergents to break down fat, was introduced as early as 1988. The benefits of exploiting natural processes and products are manifold: they do not rely on fossil resources, are more energy efficient and their substrates and waste are biologically degradable, which all helps to decrease their environmental impact. Using alternative substrates and energy sources, white biotechnology is already bringing many innovations to the chemical, textile, food, packaging and health care industries. It is no surprise then that academics, industry and policy makers are increasingly interested in this new technology, its economy and its contributions to a sound environment, which could make it a credible method for sustainable development. One of the first goals on white biotechnology's agenda has been the production of biodegradable plastics. Over the past 20 years, these efforts have concentrated mainly on polyesters of 3-hydroxyacids (PHAs), which are naturally synthesized by a wide range of bacteria as an energy reserve and carbon source. These compounds have properties similar to synthetic thermoplastics and elastomers from propylene to rubber, but are completely and rapidly degraded by bacteria in soil or water. The most abundant PHA is poly(3-hydroxy-butyrate) (PHB), which bacteria synthesize from acetyl-CoA. Growing on glucose, the bacterium Ralstonia eutropha can amass up to 85% of its dry weight in PHB, which makes this microorganism a miniature bioplastic factory. A major limitation of the commercialization of such bacterial plastics has always been their cost, as they are 5–10 times more expensive to produce than petroleum-based polymers. Much effort has therefore gone into reducing production costs through the development of better bacterial strains, but recently a potentially more economic and environmentally friendly alternative emerged, namely the modification of plants to synthesize PHAs. A small amount of PHB was
first produced in Arabidopsis thaliana after
the introduction of R. eutropha genes encoding two enzymes that are
essential for the conversion of acetyl-CoA to PHB (Poirier
et al., 1992). Monsanto (
Plans to manufacture a T-shirt from corn sugar have reached the same impasse. Dupont ( Cargill Dow ( Another product that could benefit greatly from innovative biotechnology is paper. Much of the cost and considerable pollution involved in the paper-making process is caused by 'krafting', a method for removing lignin from the wood substrate. Lignin is the second most abundant polymer in nature after cellulose and provides structural stability to plants. In view of the significant economic benefits that might be achieved, many research efforts went into reducing the amount of lignin or modifying lignin structure in trees, while preserving their growth and structural integrity. Genetically modified trees with these properties already exist (Hu et al., 1999; Chabannes et al., 2001; Li et al., 2003), but money will probably not be made from them anytime soon. Although the paper industry could make a considerable profit by reducing production costs, no large projects in this direction have yet been undertaken. Alain Boudet, Professor at the Centre for Vegetable Biotechnology at the University Paul Sabatier ( White biotechnology also concentrates on the production of energy from renewable resources and biomasses. Starch from corn, potatoes, sugar cane and wheat is already used to produce ethanol as a substitute for gasoline—Henry Ford's first car ran on ethanol. Today, some motor fuel sold in But turning starch into ethanol is neither the most environmentally nor economically efficient method, as growing plants for ethanol production involves the use of herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation and machinery. Companies such as Novozymes (Bagsvaerd, Denmark), Genencor (Palo Alto, CA, USA) and Maxygen (Redwood City, CA, USA) are therefore exploring avenues to derive ethanol specifically from celluloid material in wood, grasses and, more attractively, agricultural waste. Much of their effort is concentrated on developing more effective bacterial cellulases that can break down agricultural waste into simple sugars to create a more plentiful and cheaper raw substrate for the production of ethanol. Hopeful visionaries have already started to talk about a 'carbohydrate economy' replacing the old 'hydrocarbon economy'. However, "making biomass an effective feedstock is not a cheap process," reminded Kirsten Stær, Director of Stakeholder Communications at Novozymes. To get the production of biofuel up and running on a commercial basis, alongside the development of new feedstock collection systems and the creation of special production plants, a different pricing of biofuel will be required, she commented. "The price structure for fossil fuel is fixed in the market by regulatory frameworks. If the biofuel production is to be successful, it will be necessary to enforce policies that introduce subsidies to bioethanol production, for instance, or put taxes on fossil fuel production," Stær said. This has not stopped J. Craig Venter from founding the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA) in White biotechnology may also benefit medicine and agriculture. Vitamin B2 (riboflavin), for instance, is widely used in animal feed, human food and cosmetics
and has traditionally been manufactured in a
six-step chemical process. At BASF (
Nevertheless, the potential environmental benefits of shifting to biofeedstocks and bioprocesses are substantial, thinks Wolfgang Jenseit from the Institute for Applied Ecology (
And the economic benefits are expected to follow. According to the global consultancy firm McKinsey & Company, white biotechnology will occupy up to 10–20% of the entire chemical market in 2010, with annual growth rates of 11–22 billion. Huge differences exist, however, in the ways white biotechnology is managed in Europe and the But white biotechnology has drawn interest in |
Mining is
the extraction of valuable minerals or other
geological
materials from the earth, usually (but not always) from an ore body, vein,
or (coal) seam. Materials recovered by mining include bauxite, coal, copper, gold, silver, diamonds, iron, precious
metals, lead, limestone[edit] Techniques
A minecart toilet, used in Bisbee,
Arizona.
Mining
techniques can be divided into two basic excavation types:
In-situ
leach is a particular mining technique that is used to mine minerals (potash, potassium chloride, sodium
chloride, sodium sulphate and uranium
oxide) which dissolve in water.
, nickel, phosphate, oil shale, rock
salt, tin, uranium, and molybdenum.
Any material that cannot be grown from agricultural
processes, or created artificially in a laboratory
or factory, is
usually mined. Mining in a wider sense can also include extraction of petroleum, natural gas,
and even water.