Moutinho Liza Fernandes, Moura Felipe Ramalho, Silvestre Rackel Carvalho, Romão-Dumaresq Aline Silva
SENAI Innovation Institute for Biosynthetics and Fibers, SENAI CETIQT, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Biotechnol Prog. 2021 Mar;37(2):e3093. doi: 10.1002/btpr.3093. Epub 2020 Oct 26.
Biosurfactants are surface-active molecules originated from renewable resources, which are produced by microbial fermentation or chemical/enzymatic catalysis. These molecules present important advantages as compared to petrochemical surfactants, given their resistance to extreme conditions, biodegradability, specificity, and environmental compatibility. Besides that, the high production costs hinder its commercialization. In this way, this article aimed to analyze microbial biosurfactants production, focusing on the optimization of metabolic pathways and production processes, to identify key aspects and provide alternatives to allow a cost-effective production at industrial scale. This was achieved by a broad analysis of biosurfactants properties, applications, and biosynthetic pathways (in terms of yield, cofactors, and energy), in addition to an assessment of production-associated costs. As a result of the present extensive data survey and analysis, key production aspects are disclosed. The metabolic pathway yield analysis demonstrated that production of biosurfactants can be significantly improved (highest theoretical yield was 0.47 g /g ) by the use of biomolecular engineering techniques to generate optimized synthetic pathways. With an alternative proposed pathway for surfactin, yield was improved and imbalance in cofactors and ATP was reduced. Analysis of productive costs indicated that to make rhamnolipids commercial production feasible, the main efforts should focus on lowering substrate costs as well as the identification of energy-efficient unit operations to lower electricity cost, since these parameters accounted for 19.36 and 78.22%, respectively, of the production costs. The data generated by this analysis highlight the need for multidisciplinary collaboration to make rhamnolipids economically feasible, including biomolecular engineering and process intensification.
生物表面活性剂是源自可再生资源的表面活性分子，可通过微生物发酵或化学/酶催化产生。与石化表面活性剂相比，这些分子具有重要优势，因为它们具有耐极端条件、可生物降解、特异性和环境相容性。除此之外，高生产成本阻碍了其商业化。因此，本文旨在分析微生物生物表面活性剂的生产，重点是代谢途径和生产过程的优化，以确定关键方面并提供替代方案，从而实现工业规模的经济高效生产。这是通过对生物表面活性剂的性质、应用和生物合成途径（从产量、辅因子和能量方面）进行广泛分析，以及对生产相关成本进行评估来实现的。通过本次广泛的数据调查和分析，揭示了关键的生产方面。代谢途径产量分析表明，通过使用生物分子工程技术来生成优化的合成途径，生物表面活性剂的产量可以显著提高（最高理论产量为0.47克/克）。对于表面活性素提出了一种替代途径，产量得到提高，辅因子和ATP的不平衡减少。生产成本分析表明，要使鼠李糖脂的商业生产可行，主要努力应集中在降低底物成本以及确定节能单元操作以降低电力成本，因为这些参数分别占生产成本的19.36%和78.22%。该分析产生的数据突出了多学科合作以使鼠李糖脂在经济上可行的必要性，包括生物分子工程和过程强化。
