Bioreactors future developments

At present, photosynthetic organisms are not generally used as biocatalysts for bioconversion of organic compounds except for bioremediation of pollutants in the environment, although they are environment-friendly catalysts, and they may contain unusual type of enzymes to establish new reactions. Development of bioreactors specially developed for photosynthefic organism-catalyzed reaction as well as finding effective photosynthetic organisms as a biocatalyst are required in the future. 

Obviously, the ease with which the enzyme support can be reclaimed and enzyme activity re-immobilized will make a significant contribution to the cost of bioreactor operation. The higher the initial cost of the support matrix, the more important this regenerative capability becomes. Thus, future development of well defined, stable enzyme supports may depend upon concomitant development of efficient, high affinity, and selective adsorption techniques to allow simultaneous isolation and immobilization. 

It is expected that in the very near future, the application of closed water loops will show an intensive growth, strongly supported by the further development of separate treatment technologies such as anaerobic treatment, membrane bioreactors, advanced biofilm processes, membrane separation processes, advanced precipitation processes for recovery of nutrients, selective separation processes for recovery of heavy metals, advanced oxidation processes, selective adsorption processes, advanced processes for demineralisation, and physical/chemical processes which can be applied at elevated temperature. 

The last systematic description of heme peroxidases was published in 1999 by Brian Dunford, from the University of Alberta in Canada. The book Heme peroxidases covers discussion on three-dimensional structure, reaction mechanism, kinetics, and spectral properties of representative enzymes from bacterial, plant, fungal, and animal origin. Since 1999, vast information on basic but also applied aspects of heme peroxidases has been generated. We believe fusion of these two aspects will benefit research of those dedicated to development of biocatalytic process. The aim of this book is to present recent advances on basic aspects such as evolution, structure-function relation, and catalytic mechanism, as well as applied aspects, such as bioreactor and protein engineering, in order to provide the tools for rational design of enhanced biocatalysts and biocatalytic processes. The book does not include an exhaustive listing of references but rather a selected collection to enrich discussion and to allow envisioning future directions for research. 

Identifying an environment that avoids induction of undesired enzymes and repression of desired ones and implementing bioreactor control systems that maintain these desired conditions in a bioprocess are subjects of future importance. For example, accumulation of a product in the cell environment can often repress synthesis of some of the enzymes required for production of that compound. Product repression and inhibition phenomena have motivated special interest recently in combined bioprocessing operations which accomplish separation simultaneously with bioreaction. By continuously removing a product that inhibits its own synthesis, production of that material is improved. Development of new selective membranes and other process strategies for accomplishing these separations is an important area for future research. 

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