Industrial Biotechnology¿s Impact on the Downstream Business of Crude Oil

• Autores: R. Aga van Zeebroeck
• Localización: Ingeniería química, ISSN 0210-2064, Nº. 434, 2006 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Achema'06), págs. 25-43
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • During the last years, increasing concerns about climate change and in particular about the dependence and the insecurity of supply of expensive crude oil, have stimulated the interest of the developed countries for biofuels. A sharp increase of demand and production is forecasted. In the past, the production of biofuels has been essentially the domain of non petroleum companies. Now several oil companies are doing steps into what is being called ¿biorefining¿, because it will affect strongly their downstream activities. The consideration of biofuels as renewable energy has been questioned by several studies. Intensive research is taking place to develop industrial biotechnologies that are able to increase the production capacity per hectare of farmland, to reduce the cost of converting abundant and cheap biomass and to make biocatalytic processes more efficient.

    1.Introduction Einstein¿s quote, although he has pronounced it many years ago, suggests how much nature still has to reveal to us to protect it. According to LibraGen, a Toulouse based biotechnology company, known and cultivable micro-organisms only represent 1% of the bacterial world. They have yielded 60% of current antibiotics, the majority of anti-inflammatory or anti-cancer compounds as well as almost all existing industrial enzymes used today. The remaining 99% of the existing bacterial diversity represent a tremendous reservoir of genes and metabolicpathways...