ABSTRACT
Microbial synthesis of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) has been developed for applications in the packaging, medicine, pharmacy, agriculture, and food industries. However, its high production cost limits the large-scale applications of PHA. ‘Next Generation Industrial Biotechnology (NGIB)’ was first proposed aiming to overcome the disadvantages of the current industrial biotechnology Chassis of the NGIB could be extremophile bacteria (no archaea) and bacteria able to consume special substrates such as methanol, carbon dioxide (CO2), or syngas. NGIB based on extremophiles will significantly reduce production costs including reducing fermentation complexity, production equipment expenses, sources of substrates, energy, and water consumption. PHA production has been successfully conducted from a 7 L fermenter in the lab to 5000 L in industry. PHA is considered to be an environmentally friendly bioplastic because of its biodegradability and biocompatibility as well as thermoprocessibility.
