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The contributions that biotechnology has made to health care and agriculture have received much attention from the press and the public, but now society is beginning to see the benefits of biotechnology's "third wave"-industrial and environmental biotech.
This third wave of biotechnology is already successfully competing with traditional manufacturing processes and has shown promise for achieving industrial sustainability.
To industry, sustainable development means continuous innovation, improvement and use of "clean" technologies to make fundamental changes in pollution levels and resource consumption. An industrially sustainable process should, in principle, be characterized by
reduction or elimination of toxic waste. lower greenhouse gases. low consumption of energy and nonrenewable raw materials (and high use of carbohydrate feedstocks, such as sugars and starch). lower manufacturing cost.
Living systems manage their chemistry more efficiently than man-made chemical plants, and the wastes that are generated are recyclable or biodegradable. Biocatalysts, and particularly enzyme-based processes, operate at lower temperatures and produce less toxic waste, fewer byproducts and less emissions than conventional chemical processes. They may also use less purified raw materials (selectivity). Use of biotechnology can also reduce energy required for industrial processes. Finally, just as biotechnology is providing us with new tools for diagnosing health problems and detecting harmful contaminants in food, it is yielding new methods of monitoring environmental conditions and detecting pollutants.
Biotechnology in industry employs the techniques of modern molecular biology to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing. Industrial biotechnology also works to make manufacturing processes more efficient for industries such as textiles, paper and pulp, and specialty chemicals. Some observers predict biotechnology will transform the industrial manufacturing sector in much the same way that it has changed the pharmaceutical, agricultural and food sectors. Industrial biotechnology will be a key to achieving industrial and environmental sustainability.
Industrial Sustainability
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), industrial sustainability is the continuous innovation, improvement and use of clean technology to reduce pollution levels and consumption of resources. Modern biotechnology provides avenues for achieving these goals.
In recent years, policy-makers, corporate executives, private citizens and environmentalists have become more concerned about sustainable development. In response to that concern, many leading industrial companies are doing more than meeting their legal minimums. Many are developing policies and implementation plans for sustainability that include guidelines for environmental health and safety as well as product stewardship.
The key words to achieving sustainability are "clean" and "efficient." Any change in production processes, practices or products that makes production cleaner and more efficient per unit of production or consumption is a move toward sustainability.
In practical terms, industrial sustainability means employing technologies and know-how to lessen material and energy inputs, maximize renewable resources and biodegradable substances as inputs, minimize the generation of pollutants or harmful waste during product manufacture and use, and produce recyclable or biodegradable products.
MATERIAL AND ENERGY INPUTS
Manufacturing processes have long relied on petroleum, a nonrenewable resource that generates pollution and solid waste, as a source of material and energy. Biotechnology provides ways to produce cleaner products and processes by reducing the use of petroleum inputs. Industrial biotechnology instead uses natural sugars as feedstocks.
Through biotechnology, the use of renewable, biomass-based feedstocks will increase. Bio-feedstocks offer two environmental advantages over petroleum-based production: Production will be cleaner, in most cases, and less waste will be generated. When the biomass source is agricultural refuse, our gains double: We will enjoy all the advantages of bio-feedstocks while reducing wastes generated from another human endeavor-agriculture. A final advantage of using plant biomass as feedstock is that as our crop of feedstock grows, it consumes CO2-one of the greenhouse gases.
Today at least 5 billion kilograms of commodity chemicals are produced annually in the United States using plant biomass as the primary feedstock.
Biotechnology will also have an impact on two sources of energy: fossil fuels and new biomass-based fuels. Innovations wrought by biotechnology can help remove the sulfur from fossil fuels, significantly decreasing their polluting power. Using biomass for energy has the same environmental advantages as using biomass feedstocks, so government labs have devoted significant resources to research on recombinant technology and bioprocess engineering to improve the economic feasibility of biomass-derived energy.
INDUSTRIAL MANUFACTURING PROCESSES
In addition to working toward sustainability by using biomass-based material and energy inputs, biotechnology offers us many options for minimizing the environmental impact of manufacturing processes by decreasing energy use and replacing harsh chemicals with biodegradable molecules produced by living things.
Unlike many chemical reactions that require very high temperatures and pressures, reactions using biological molecules work best under conditions that are compatible with life-that is, temperatures under 100º F, atmospheric pressure and water-based solutions. Therefore, manufacturing processes that use biological molecules can lower the amount of energy needed to drive reactions.
Manufacturing processes that use biodegradable molecules as biocatalysts, solvents or surfactants are also less polluting. Microbial fermentation systems have provided us with some very important industrial solvents, such as ethanol and acetic acid, for decades. Many surfactants used in chemical manufacturing processes are biological molecules that microorganisms produce naturally, such as emulsan and sophorolipids. Marine biotechnologists have recently discovered a surfactant produced by marine microorganisms that may replace chemical solvents. However, the biological products that offer us the greatest potential for decreasing the environmental impact of industrial manufacturing processes are the biocatalysts, which are living organisms or simply their enzymes.
Biocatalysts
Industrial biotechnology companies develop new enzymes, biocatalysts, to be used in manufacturing processes of other industries. Enzymes are proteins produced by all living organisms. In humans, enzymes help digest food, turn the information in DNA into proteins, and perform other complex functions. Enzymes are characterized according to the compounds they act upon. Some of the most common enzymes are proteases, which break down protein; cellulases, which break down cellulose; lipases, which act on fatty acids and oils; and amylases, which break starch down into simple sugars.
Industrial biotechnology companies look for biocatalysts with industrial value in the natural environment; improve the biocatalysts to meet very specific needs, using the techniques described below; and manufacture them in commercial quantities using fermentation systems similar to those that produce human therapeutic proteins or bulk yeast for the brewing and baking industries. In some cases, genetically altered microbes (bacteria, yeast, etc.) carry out the fermentation. In other cases, either naturally occurring microbes or microbes genetically modified with other techniques are the production organism.
DISCOVERING NOVEL BIOCATALYSTS
Companies involved in industrial biotechnology constantly strive to discover and develop high-value enzymes or other bioactive compounds that will improve current manufacturing processes.
Chemical processes, including paper manufacturing, textile processing and specialty chemical synthesis, sometimes require very high or very low temperatures or very acidic or alkaline conditions.
Incorporating biocatalysts into manufacturing processes carried out under extreme conditions requires finding organisms that can survive there. The best place to begin the search for such an organism is in natural environments that mimic the extreme manufacturing conditions, and the best organisms to look for in those environments are microorganisms.
Since the dawn of life, microbes have adapted to every imaginable environment. No matter how harsh the environment, some microbe has found a way to make a living there. Life in unusual habitats makes for unique biocatalysts, and the great majority of that biochemical potential remains untapped. Fewer than 1 percent of the microorganisms in the world have been cultured and characterized. Through bioprospecting, scientists are discovering novel biocatalysts that will function optimally at the relatively extreme levels of acidity, salinity, temperature or pressure found in some industrial manufacturing processes-hence the name extremophiles.
Information from genomic studies of microbes is helping researchers capitalize on the wealth of genetic diversity in microbial populations. Researchers use DNA probes to fish, on a molecular level, for genes that express enzymes with specific biocatalytic capabilities. Once snared, such enzymes can be identified and characterized for their ability to function in industrial processes, and if necessary, they can be improved with biotechnology techniques.
IMPROVING EXISTING BIOCATALYSTS
To improve the productivity-to-cost ratio, scientists are modifying genes to increase enzyme productivity in microorganisms currently used in enzyme production. They also give new manufacturing capabilities to these microbial workhorses by genetically altering them to make enzymes that come from microbes that are too expensive or too finicky to cultivate in the lab.
The biotechnology techniques of protein engineering and directed protein evolution maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of enzymes. They have been used to modify the specificity of enzymes, improve catalytic properties or broaden the conditions under which enzymes can function so that they are more compatible with existing industrial processes.
Biofuel
In his January 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush declared: "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology." One of his key technological solutions was "research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass."
He announced a national goal to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years, pledging $150 million in FY 2007 for biomass research, development and demonstration. Advances in industrial biotechnology and development of new integrated "biorefineries" are at the heart of ethanol production from all sources.
April 2004 saw the first commercial production of ethanol from cellulose, made from wheat straw using biotech enzymes. Some 10 to 15 billion gallons of ethanol could be produced each year from corn stalks and husks and wheat straw, according to Burrill & Co. Another 50 billion could be made using such raw materials as wood-product manufacturing residues, municipal solid waste and garden waste. Ethanol from dedicated energy crops, like switchgrass, could add even more.
President Bush's initiative followed passage of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, landmark legislation for industrial biotech, which authorized over $3 billion in funding for biofuels and biobased products and established a national renewable fuels standard. The bill established a goal of displacing 30 percent of today's gasoline consumption with ethanol or other biofuels by 2030. A recent Natural Resources Defense Council report suggests that that potential could be even higher.
Other recent developments in biomass energy include:
In March 2007, the Department of Energy announced $385 million in competitively awarded grants for construction of six pioneer biorefineries. The awardees included three BIO member companies who will use industrial biotech processes in producing cellulosic ethanol:
Abengoa Bioenergy, with its technology partner Dyadic International, received a $76 million matching grant to construct a new facility producing 11.4 million gallons of ethanol from cellulose in Colwich, Kansas. Poet Bioenergy (formerly Broin Companies), with its technology partners DuPont and Novozymes North America, received an $80 million grant for the conversion and expansion of an existing facility in Emmetsburg, Iowa, which will produce 125 million gallons of ethanol, including more than 30 million gallons from cellulose. Iogen Corp. received an $80 million grant for construction of a new 18 million gallon ethanol from cellulose facility in Shelley, Idaho.
A recent study by the University of Tennessee shows that America's fields, farms and forests could produce 86 billion gallons of ethanol and 1.2 billion gallons of biodiesel, decreasing U.S. petroleum gasoline usage by 59 billion gallons by 2025. A growing number of states have implemented their own renewable fuels requirements. Many are also providing incentives for biorefinery construction. A 2006 report from the Worldwatch Institute found that "development of biofuels and bio-based co-products has the potential to increase energy security for many nations; to create new economic opportunities for people in rural, agricultural areas the world over; to protect and enhance the environment on local, regional, and global scales; and to provide new and improved products to millions of consumers." A 2005 joint report from the Departments of Energy and Agriculture found that more than 1 billion tons of biomass are available in the US to produce biofuels and bioproducts, enough to meet over half of US demand for transportation and chemicals. A 2004 Natural Resources Defense Council report projects biofuels could add $5 billion to farmer profits by 2025. Also in 2004, the Ag Energy Working Group of the Energy Future Coalition published a report showing how America's farmers can contribute 25 percent of the total energy consumed in the United States by 2025, without affecting food and feed production. A growing number of states have implemented their own renewable fuels requirements. Many are also providing incentives for biorefinery construction.
Green Plastics
Biotechnology also offers us the prospect of replacing petroleum-derived polymers with biological polymers derived from grain or agricultural biomass.
In 2001, the world's first biorefinery opened in Blair, Nebraska, to convert sugars from field corn into polylactic acid (PLA)-a compostable biopolymer that can be used to produce packaging materials, clothing and bedding products. Price and performance are competitive with pretroleum-based plastics and polyesters. Several national retailers, including Whole Foods and Wal-Mart, are now using PLA packaging. At the 2006 BIO International Convention in Chicago, professional models in PLA designer gowns put industrial biotech center stage in the world's first biotech fashion show.
Also in 2001, DuPont, and its development partners Genencor and Tate & Lyle, created the high-performance polymer Sorona from the bioprocessing of corn sugar at a biorefinery in Decatur, Illinois. Production of bio-PDO, the renewable raw material for Sorona, is expected to begin in 2006 at a new DuPont/Tate & Lyle biorefinery in Loudon, Tennessee. Production sold out months before the plant was completed.
Early in 2006, agri-food giant Archer Daniels Midland signed an agreement with Metabolix, a small industrial biotech company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), a versatile family of biobased polymers, at a biorefinery in Clinton, Iowa.
Industrial scientists have also genetically modified both plants and microbes to produce polyhydroxybutyrate, a feedstock for producing biodegradable plastics. Finally, biotechnology provides us with the opportunity to produce abundant amounts of natural protein polymers, such as spider silk and adhesives from barnacles, through microbial fermentation.
In place of petroleum-based chemicals to create plastics and polyesters, biotechnology uses sugar from plant material. Almost all the giant chemical companies are building partnerships with biotech companies to develop enzymes that can break down plant sugars.
In summary, no matter what stage of industrial production you select-inputs, manufacturing process or final product-biotechnology provides tools, techniques and know-how to move beyond regulatory compliance to proactive pollution prevention and resource conservation strategies that are the hallmarks of industrial sustainability.
Nanotechnology
Remember the movie Fantastic Voyage, in which technology existed to shrink a full-size submarine and its human passengers to microscopic size? Today, industrial biotech companies are embarking on their own fantastic voyage into the submicroscopic worlds of biotechnology and nanotechnology. There, they are exploiting the physio-chemical activities of cells to accomplish tasks at nano (10-9 meters) scale.
Some are taking genomics and proteomics one step further and exploring how to apply this knowledge gained in the organic world to the inorganic world of carbon and silicon. For example, Genencor International and Dow-Corning have partnered to combine their respective expertise in protein-engineered systems and silicon. Their strategic alliance seeks to apply the biotech business model to a third outlet of creativity where products can be developed for other companies based on specific needs.
Such convergence of biotech and nanotech promises to yield many exciting and diverse materials and products. In the area of photonics lies the potential for developing new micro-optical switches and optical micro-processing platforms. In the field of catalysis, the use of inorganic carbon or silicon substrates embedded with biocatalysts has high commercial potential.
BUILDING NANOSTRUCTURES
One of the more exciting research-stage nano-biotech applications uses knowledge about protein engineering to "build" pre-engineered nanostructures for specific tasks. For instance, we know that certain genes in aquatic microorganisms code for proteins that govern the construction of inorganic exoskeletons. In theory, it should be possible to elucidate these gene functions and re-engineer them to code for nanostructures that could be commercially important, such as specific silicon chips or micro-transistors.
Researchers at the University of Illinois recently discovered a first-of-its-kind carbon-silicon compound in freshwater diatoms. This discovery promises to open the door to understanding the molecular process of biosilicification, or the ways plants and animals build natural structures. This understanding may lead to applications ranging from low-cost synthesis of advanced biomaterials to new treatments for osteoporosis. NASA and some companies are also looking at bioactive ceramics found to have unanticipated bio-adhesive properties. These properties could provide new ways to purify water since bacteria and viruses adhere to these ceramic fibers.
Protein polymer structures are another area ripe for research and development. Industrial biotech companies have years of experience with genetic platform technologies that can be applied to repeating amino acid sequences. These five to six repeat segments can govern the physical structure of a host of biopolymers.
New technology allows spider silk to be produced in goats, but in the future it may be possible for scientists to build polymers in the lab that are even stronger and that won't need living expression systems for large-scale production. It is not difficult to imagine completely new, commercially attractive polymers being developed using recombinant DNA technology.
Carbon nanotube technology is another exciting area of research and development in the nanoworld. Their great tensile strength makes nanotubes perfect for use in new high-tech composites, for switching in computers, and for the storage of hydrogen energy for transportation or power-generation applications. Carbon nanotubes can be coated with reaction-specific biocatalysts and other proteins for specialized applications. Biotechnology may hold the key to making carbon nanotubes even more economically attractive.
Looking further into the future, we may see the use of DNA fragments for electronic switching come into play, along with the materials just discussed. The number of possible new nano-bio combinations is amazingly large.
What does the future market for nanotech look like? The National Science Foundation estimates that by 2015 the market for nanotech products could exceed $1 trillion.
Industrial biotechnology is poised to merge its applications with carbon and silicon, a merger that could catapult industrial biotech companies from nanospace into financial hyperspace.
Environmental Biotechnology
Environmental biotechnology is the use of living organisms for a wide variety of applications in hazardous waste treatment and pollution control. For example, a fungus is being used to clean up a noxious substance discharged by the paper-making industry. Other naturally occurring microbes that live on toxic waste dumps are degrading wastes, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), to harmless compounds. Marine biotechnologists are studying ways that estuarine bacteria can detoxify materials such as chemical sea brines that cause environmental problems in many industries.
Environmental biotechnology can more efficiently clean up many hazardous wastes than conventional methods and greatly reduce our dependence for waste cleanup on methods such as incineration or hazardous waste dump sites.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Using biotechnology to treat pollution problems is not a new idea. Communities have depended on complex populations of naturally occurring microbes for sewage treatment for over a century. Every living organism-animals, plants, bacteria and so forth-ingests nutrients to live and produces a waste byproduct as a result. Different organisms need different types of nutrients. Certain bacteria thrive on the chemical components of waste products. Some microorganisms, for example, feed on toxic materials such as methylene chloride, detergents and creosote.
Environmental engineers use bioremediation in two basic ways. They introduce nutrients to stimulate the activity of bacteria already present in the soil at a hazardous waste site, or they add new bacteria to the soil. The bacteria then "eat" the hazardous waste at the site and turn it into harmless byproducts. After the bacteria consume the waste materials, they die off or return to their normal population levels in the environment.
The vast majority of bioremediation applications use naturally occurring microorganisms to identify and filter manufacturing waste before it is introduced into the environment or to clean up existing pollution problems. Some more advanced systems using genetically modified microorganisms are being tested in waste treatment and pollution control to remove difficult-to-degrade materials.
In some cases, the byproducts of the pollution-fighting microorganisms are themselves useful. Methane, for example, can be derived from a form of bacteria that degrades sulfur liquor, a waste product of paper manufacturing.
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING
The techniques of biotechnology are providing us with novel methods for diagnosing environmental problems and assessing normal environmental conditions so that we can be better-informed environmental stewards. Companies have developed methods for detecting harmful organic pollutants in the soil using monoclonal antibodies and the polymerase chain reaction, while scientists in government labs have produced antibody-based biosensors that detect explosives at old munitions sites. Not only are these methods cheaper and faster than laboratory methods that require large and expensive instruments, but they are also portable. Rather than gathering soil samples and sending them to a laboratory for analysis, scientists can measure the level of contamination on site and know the results immediately.
Industries That Benefit
The chemical industry: using biocatalysts to produce novel compounds, reduce waste byproducts and improve chemical purity. The plastics industry: decreasing the use of petroleum for plastic production by making "green plastics" from renewable crops such as corn or soybeans. The paper industry: improving manufacturing processes, including the use of enzymes to lower toxic byproducts from pulp processes. The textiles industry: lessening toxic byproducts of fabric dying and finishing processes. Fabric detergents are becoming more effective with the addition of enzymes to their active ingredients. The food industry: improving baking processes, fermentation-derived preservatives and analysis techniques for food safety. The livestock industry: adding enzymes to increase nutrient uptake and decrease phosphate byproducts. The energy industry: using enzymes to manufacture cleaner biofuels from agricultural wastes.
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