TY - JOUR

T1 - Systematizing Microbial Bioplastic Production for Developing Sustainable Bioeconomy

T2 - Metabolic Nexus Modeling, Economic and Environmental Technologies Assessment

AU - Sangtani, Rimjhim

AU - Nogueira, Regina

AU - Yadav, Asheesh Kumar

AU - Kiran, Bala

N1 - Funding Information: The authors appreciate the support of Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute, Al-zahra University, the Slovak Grant Agency VEGA under contract number 2/0140/20 and 2/0121/23, and the Slovak Research and Development Agency under contract number APVV-18-0480. This work is the result of the project implementation CEMBAM – Centre for Medical Bio-Additive Manufacturing and Research, ITMS2014+: 313011V358 and Advanced Bioactive Hydrogel Scaffolds for Regenerative Medicine (ABSACARM), ITMS2014+: 313011BWL6 supported by the Operational Programme Integrated Infrastructure funded by the European Regional Development Fund. Funding Information: The authors acknowledge University Grant Commission (UGC) India for fellowship support to Ms. Rimjhim Sangtani, DST FIST support (Project No. SR/FST/LS-I/2020/621) for project finance and DAAD for LUH-IITI mobility grant. The authors are thankful to Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Indore for providing the necessary support. The funding agency has not played any role in the design or decisions regarding the publication of the manuscript.

PY - 2023/7

Y1 - 2023/7

N2 - The excessive usage of non-renewable resources to produce plastic commodities has incongruously influenced the environment’s health. Especially in the times of COVID-19, the need for plastic-based health products has increased predominantly. Given the rise in global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, the lifecycle of plastic has been established to contribute to it significantly. Bioplastics such as polyhydroxy alkanoates, polylactic acid, etc. derived from renewable energy origin have been a magnificent alternative to conventional plastics and reconnoitered exclusively for combating the environmental footprint of petrochemical plastic. However, the economically reasonable and environmentally friendly procedure of microbial bioplastic production has been a hard nut to crack due to less scouted and inefficient process optimization and downstream processing methodologies. Thereby, meticulous employment of computational tools such as genome-scale metabolic modeling and flux balance analysis has been practiced in recent times to understand the effect of genomic and environmental perturbations on the phenotype of the microorganism. In-silico results not only aid us in determining the biorefinery abilities of the model microorganism but also curb our reliance on equipment, raw materials, and capital investment for optimizing the best conditions. Additionally, to accomplish sustainable large-scale production of microbial bioplastic in a circular bioeconomy, extraction, and refinement of bioplastic needs to be investigated extensively by practicing techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment. This review put forth state-of-the-art know-how on the proficiency of these computational techniques in laying the foundation of an efficient bioplastic manufacturing blueprint, chiefly focusing on microbial polyhydroxy alkanoates (PHA) production and its efficacy in outplacing fossil based plastic products.

AB - The excessive usage of non-renewable resources to produce plastic commodities has incongruously influenced the environment’s health. Especially in the times of COVID-19, the need for plastic-based health products has increased predominantly. Given the rise in global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, the lifecycle of plastic has been established to contribute to it significantly. Bioplastics such as polyhydroxy alkanoates, polylactic acid, etc. derived from renewable energy origin have been a magnificent alternative to conventional plastics and reconnoitered exclusively for combating the environmental footprint of petrochemical plastic. However, the economically reasonable and environmentally friendly procedure of microbial bioplastic production has been a hard nut to crack due to less scouted and inefficient process optimization and downstream processing methodologies. Thereby, meticulous employment of computational tools such as genome-scale metabolic modeling and flux balance analysis has been practiced in recent times to understand the effect of genomic and environmental perturbations on the phenotype of the microorganism. In-silico results not only aid us in determining the biorefinery abilities of the model microorganism but also curb our reliance on equipment, raw materials, and capital investment for optimizing the best conditions. Additionally, to accomplish sustainable large-scale production of microbial bioplastic in a circular bioeconomy, extraction, and refinement of bioplastic needs to be investigated extensively by practicing techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment. This review put forth state-of-the-art know-how on the proficiency of these computational techniques in laying the foundation of an efficient bioplastic manufacturing blueprint, chiefly focusing on microbial polyhydroxy alkanoates (PHA) production and its efficacy in outplacing fossil based plastic products.

KW - Bioplastics

KW - Flux balance analysis

KW - Genome-scale metabolic model

KW - Life-cycle assessment

KW - Sustainable bioeconomy

KW - Techno-economic analysis

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148374387&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10924-023-02787-0

DO - 10.1007/s10924-023-02787-0

M3 - Book/Film/Article review in journal

AN - SCOPUS:85148374387

VL - 31

SP - 2741

EP - 2760

JO - Journal of Polymers and the Environment

JF - Journal of Polymers and the Environment

SN - 1566-2543

IS - 7

ER -