GREEN CHEMISTRY
Advances in large-scale separations have made biomanufacturing faster and less expensive than some traditional chemical processes . All of this drastically lowers the barriers to innovation , enabling designers to devise a greater range of speciality molecules without concern for constructing special-purpose , billiondollar manufacturing facilities .
Figure 2 – Complexity of classical chemical building blocks ( left ) v . biomolecules ( right )
‣ Biology ’ s database is exponentially are created to carry out molecular transformations that could make traditional chemistry blush . fuller , richer and more diverse than traditionally human-driven chemistry . Perhaps ironically , its reaction conditions are far more uniform . Consider the countless chemical transformations that occur within a cell . The inventor of these myriad unnamed reactions is nature . They all occur at ambient temperature and pressure , using water as a solvent ! From a sustainability and green chemistry perspective , these elusive ‘ perfect ’ conditions of chemical reactivity are commonplace in biology . Biomanufacturing is intrinsically suited to the safe and sustainable practices of green chemistry . It generally uses renewable feedstocks , it is much more energy-efficient , it uses biochemical pathways that minimise waste and lead naturally to products that are biologically non-toxic , and the fermentation process leaves little or no harmful waste to treat or clean up . Through laboratory automation , machine learning , and data sciences — combined with biochemical intuition — microbes as ‘ mini-reactors ’
Scaling production
There are significant differences between traditional chemistry and biomanufacturing in how speciality chemicals can be made . Each largescale chemical manufacturing plant in the world has its own unique features and is purpose-built to the specific chemical transformations necessary to make its specific molecular target ( s ). It is not simple or cheap to retool one of them to make a better , greener or more lucrative product . Given the massive human , financial and often environmental resources required to construct and operate these factories , rapid innovation is often disincentivised . In biomanufacturing , chemical manufacturing happens within cells . While the molecular structures being created might show no similarity in any way , the technology and fundamental structure of the fermentation machinery are remarkably similar .
The ideal green chemist
The chemical sciences have been around for nearly 300 years . Our notebooks , textbooks , and journals are packed with results from generations of chemists and materials scientists . But , with the complexity of nature and 3.8 billion years of evolution , the information filled in the cells of life are several orders of magnitude more voluminous , diverse and complete ( Figure 2 ). Biomanufacturing taps into this rich complexity as it goes beyond the biomanufacturing paradigm to leverage biology not only as a means of production but also as a design platform . It enables new levels of speciality innovation , simultaneously meeting market demand for new products , industrial need for a consolidated manufacturing approach , and societal demand for greener , more sustainable processes . •
Dr John Warner
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT
ZYMERGEN k + 1 415 801-8073 J jwarner @ zymergen . com j www . zymergen . com
34 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981