Biomanufacturing

Also known as: biomanufactured, bio-based manufacturing

Biomanufacturing is the industrial-scale production of materials, chemicals, fuels, food ingredients or medicines using living systems, such as microorganisms, cells or enzymes, rather than conventional chemical synthesis alone.

What is biomanufacturing?

Biomanufacturing uses biology as the factory. Microorganisms, cultured cells or enzymes carry out the chemical conversions that produce a product, usually inside controlled vessels called bioreactors or fermenters. The approach is old, since brewing and cheesemaking are early forms of it, but modern biomanufacturing applies it to a wide range of industrial products at commercial scale.

What biomanufacturing produces

Specialty chemicals and ingredients, such as biosurfactants, enzymes, organic acids and flavors.
Materials, such as bio-based polymers.
Fuels, such as ethanol.
Pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, vaccines and protein therapeutics.
Food ingredients, including proteins made by precision fermentation.

How it differs from chemical manufacturing

Chemical manufacturing typically builds molecules through reactions driven by heat, pressure and catalysts, often from petroleum-derived feedstocks. Biomanufacturing relies on living systems working at moderate temperatures and pressures, usually in water, and often on renewable feedstocks such as sugars and plant oils. It can produce complex molecules that are difficult to make chemically, sometimes with fewer steps.

Its challenges are different too: keeping organisms productive and uncontaminated, scaling up from laboratory to commercial vessels, and recovering and purifying the product from a dilute broth, which is often the most costly step. These factors, together with feedstock prices, decide whether a biomanufactured product can compete on cost.