TY - JOUR
T1 - Polyhydroxyalkanoates, challenges and opportunities
AU - Wang, Ying
AU - Yin, Jin
AU - Chen, Guo Qiang
PY - 2014/12
Y1 - 2014/12
N2 - Microbial polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) have been developed as biodegradable plastics for the past many years. However, PHA still have only a very limited market. Because of the availability of large amount of shale gas, petroleum will not raise dramatically in price, this situation makes PHA less competitive compared with low cost petroleum based plastics. Therefore, two strategies have been adopted to meet this challenge: first, the development of a super PHA production strain combined with advanced fermentation processes to produce PHA at a low cost; second, the construction of functional PHA production strains with technology to control the precise structures of PHA molecules, this will allow the resulting PHA with high value added applications. The recent systems and synthetic biology approaches allow the above two strategies to be implemented. In the not so distant future, the new technology will allow PHA to be produced with a competitive price compared with petroleum-based plastics.
AB - Microbial polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) have been developed as biodegradable plastics for the past many years. However, PHA still have only a very limited market. Because of the availability of large amount of shale gas, petroleum will not raise dramatically in price, this situation makes PHA less competitive compared with low cost petroleum based plastics. Therefore, two strategies have been adopted to meet this challenge: first, the development of a super PHA production strain combined with advanced fermentation processes to produce PHA at a low cost; second, the construction of functional PHA production strains with technology to control the precise structures of PHA molecules, this will allow the resulting PHA with high value added applications. The recent systems and synthetic biology approaches allow the above two strategies to be implemented. In the not so distant future, the new technology will allow PHA to be produced with a competitive price compared with petroleum-based plastics.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84903383582&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.copbio.2014.06.001
DO - 10.1016/j.copbio.2014.06.001
M3 - Review article
C2 - 24976377
AN - SCOPUS:84903383582
SN - 0958-1669
VL - 30
SP - 59
EP - 65
JO - Current Opinion in Biotechnology
JF - Current Opinion in Biotechnology
ER -