Environmental issues, application biotechnology

Increasing registration requirements for the product and the production process as well as environmental issues also add a significant technical and analytical dimension to the development. This particularly applies to products derived from biotechnology. Compared to conventional biological products, the final product is usually much better defined and its manufacturing process can be better controlled. But it requires the application of a variety of quite sophisticated techniques to do so. 

The wide spectrum of self-assembly phenomena can be categorized in various ways. In this entry, we discuss the similarities and the differences between two- and three-dimensional systems. The last section of this entry describes recent and possible future applications of self-assembly processes, mainly related to advanced materials, environmental issues, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. Emulsions, microemulsions, and foams are examples of important and common applications in which self-assembly plays a key role. These have a wide variety of industry applications from cosmetics, foods, detergents, oil recovery, drug formulation/delivery, petroleum refining, and mining. As these are the subjects of other topics in this encyclopedia, they are not covered here. 

Environmental biotechnology aims to provide a natural approach to tackling environmental issues, from identification of biohazards to restoration of industrial, s ricultural, and natural areas affected by contamination. Central to the concept of environmental biotechnology is the abUity to determine which contaminants are present, for how long, and in what quantity, and what recovery method is applicable. There are four basic concepts and approaches... 

In conclusion, lipases are enzymes with an ability to carry out a wide variety of chemo-, regio-, and enantioselective transformations in both aqueous and nonaqueous media. Such enzymes show several applications in areas of industrial microbiology and biotechnology. Today, environmental issues are taken into account when it comes to industrial processes. Thus, enzyme technology contributes significantly to a reduction of these negative effects such as toxicity and emission of particulate matter. Environmental concerns and the depletion of oil reserves have resulted in research into the use of lipases for environmentally friendly and sustainable biofuel production. 

Protein immobilization is an important issue for biomedical and biotechnological applications, including controlled drug delivery, protein separation, and biosensors. Smart polymers can manage protein immobilization by the manipulation of environmental parameters (temperature, pH, ionic strength, electric field, and light) (Mendes, 2008). SPB are an attractive option for protein or enzyme immobilization (Jain et al., 2009). 

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