ABSTRACT
Bionanocomposite materials by virtue of their strength in terms of structural diversity hold lots of promise and potential in terms of widespread applications in diverse fields ranging from sensing to energy production. The structural diversity can be put to advantage ranging from carbon nanotubes to collagen. The diversity can further offer host of combinations of biomaterials derived from bionanocomposites. The compositional diversity is further of immense interest in designing materials with requisite shape, size, geometry, morphology to meet the specific challenges in biocatalysis on demand. However, structural diversity may lead to varied expectations often with lexicon and evolution of much of literature. However, these materials are yet to be explored to their full potential. It is attributed to the nanotoxicity regulatory constraints and disparity in performance in terms of specificity in biocatalytic activity. However, biocatalysts with well-defined architectures exposed to chemical environments in tune with their biological activity can help increase yield by way of enhancing the substrate or mediator diffusion. Further, the right kind of architecture may present a soundness in stability in physicochemical conditions which otherwise may stifle the performance of catalysts. This chapter emphasizes conventional processing techniques in developing the bionanocomposites as the biocatalyst. Further, it explains 212innovative processing technologies like electrospinning or bioprinting to shape living matter which could, in our knowledge, hasten the spectrum of applications of bionanocomposite materials for biocatalysis.
