Strategic nutrient sourcing for biomanufacturing intensification

The successful design of economically viable bioprocesses can help to abate global dependence on petroleum, increase supply chain resilience, and add value to agriculture. Specifically, bioprocessing provides the opportunity to replace petrochemical production methods with biological methods and to develop novel bioproducts. Even though a vast range of chemicals can be biomanufactured, the constraints on economic viability, especially while competing with petrochemicals, are severe. There have been extensive gains in our ability to engineer microbes for improved production metrics and utilization of target carbon sources. The impact of growth medium composition on process cost and organism performance receives less attention in the literature than organism engineering efforts, with media optimization often being performed in proprietary settings. The widespread use of corn steep liquor as a nutrient source demonstrates the viability and importance of "waste" streams in biomanufacturing. There are other promising waste streams that can be used to increase the sustainability of biomanufacturing, such as the use of urea instead of fossil fuel-intensive ammonia and the use of struvite instead of contributing to the depletion of phosphate reserves. In this review, we discuss several process-specific optimizations of micronutrients that increased product titers by twofold or more. This practice of deliberate and thoughtful sourcing and adjustment of nutrients can substantially impact process metrics. Yet the mechanisms are rarely explored, making it difficult to generalize the results to other processes. In this review, we will discuss examples of nutrient sourcing and adjustment as a means of process improvement.

The potential impact of nutrient adjustments on bioprocess performance, economics, and waste valorization is undervalued and largely undercharacterized.