Scaling biomaterials manufacturing: Lessons from the paper industry

Biomaterials are increasingly being explored as sustainable alternatives to petroleum-derived materials, but many systems that perform well at the laboratory scale remain difficult to manufacture reliably at the industrial scale. One reason for this disconnect is that biomaterial structure and function are strongly influenced by the physical conditions present during assembly, including flow, transport, dewatering, and drying conditions that differ between laboratory and industrial environments. Here, I propose that scalable biomaterials should be designed with formation conditions and manufacturing environments considered from the outset instead of introducing process constraints only after laboratory optimization. Using papermaking and related large-scale bio-based manufacturing systems as examples, this perspective examines how process-dependent assembly governs interfacial structure development across systems including microfibrillated cellulose, protein-based materials, biofilms, and mycelium composites. Differences between benchtop and industrial processing are discussed in terms of flow behavior, transport limitations, shear history, and consolidation dynamics, demonstrating that scale-dependent physical regimes can produce fundamentally different structures and functional behavior. Based on these observations, a process-integrated framework for biomaterials design is proposed in which material selection, structure formation, and manufacturing constraints are treated as interconnected design variables. The perspective also outlines future needs in process-relevant characterization, multiscale modeling, and experimental tools capable of probing biomaterial formation under realistic manufacturing conditions. Incorporating formation pathways into biomaterials research may improve reproducibility and help bridge the gap between laboratory discovery and industrial implementation.