Tuomisto Hanna L, Allan Scott J, Ellis Marianne J
Future Sustainable Food Systems Research Group, Department of Agricultural Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, P.O. Box 27, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland; Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), P.O. Box 4, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland; Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Latokartanonkaari 9, 00790 Helsinki, Finland.
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training, Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies, University of Bath, Claverton Down, BA2 7AY Bath, UK; Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bath, Claverton Down, BA2 7AY Bath, UK.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Dec 10;851(Pt 1):158051. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158051. Epub 2022 Aug 17.
The aim of cellular agriculture is to use cell-culturing technologies to produce alternatives to agricultural products. Cultured meat is an example of a cellular agriculture product, made by using tissue engineering methods. This study aims to improve the understanding of the potential environmental impacts of cultured meat production by comparing between different bioprocess design scenarios. This was done by carrying out a life cycle assessment (LCA) for a bioprocess system using hollow fiber bioreactors, and utilizing bench-scale experimental data for C2C12 cell proliferation, differentiation and media metabolism. Scenario and sensitivity analyses were used to test the impact of changes in the system design, data sources, and LCA methods on the results to support process design decision making. We compared alternative scenarios to a baseline of C2C12 cells cultured in hollow fiber bioreactors using media consisting of DMEM with serum, for a 16-day proliferation stage and 7-day differentiation stage. The baseline LCA used the average UK electricity mix as the energy source, and heat treatment for wastewater sterilization. The greatest reduction in environmental impacts were achieved with the scenarios using CHO cell metabolism instead of C2C12 cell metabolisim (64-67 % reduction); achieving 128 % cell biomass increase during differentiation instead of no increase (42-56 % reduction); using wind electricity instead of average UK electricity (6-39 % reduction); and adjusting the amino acid use based on experimental data (16-27 % reduction). The use of chemical wastewater treatment instead of heat treatment increased all environmental impacts, except energy demand, by 1-16 %. This study provides valuable insights for the cultured meat field to understand the effects of different process design scenarios on environmental impacts, and therefore provides a framework for deciding where to focus development efforts for improving the environmental performance of the production system.
细胞农业的目标是利用细胞培养技术生产农产品的替代品。培养肉是细胞农业产品的一个例子，它是通过组织工程方法制造的。本研究旨在通过比较不同的生物工艺设计方案，增进对培养肉生产潜在环境影响的理解。这是通过对使用中空纤维生物反应器的生物工艺系统进行生命周期评估（LCA），并利用C2C12细胞增殖、分化和培养基代谢的实验室规模实验数据来实现的。情景分析和敏感性分析用于测试系统设计、数据来源和LCA方法的变化对结果的影响，以支持工艺设计决策。我们将替代方案与在中空纤维生物反应器中使用含血清的DMEM培养基培养C2C12细胞的基线方案进行了比较，增殖阶段为16天，分化阶段为7天。基线LCA使用英国平均电力组合作为能源，并对废水进行热处理消毒。使用CHO细胞代谢而非C2C12细胞代谢的方案实现了最大程度的环境影响降低（降低64 - 67%）；分化过程中细胞生物量增加128%而非无增加（降低42 - 56%）；使用风电而非英国平均电力（降低6 - 39%）；以及根据实验数据调整氨基酸使用量（降低16 - 27%）。使用化学废水处理而非热处理，除能源需求外，所有环境影响均增加了1 - 16%。本研究为培养肉领域提供了宝贵的见解，以了解不同工艺设计方案对环境影响的作用，从而为决定在何处集中开展改进生产系统环境绩效的开发工作提供了一个框架。
