2.53 - Novel Solvents for Biotechnology Applications

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Abstract

Biomolecule separation is critical to the field of biotechnology. Biomolecules include a broad diversity of primary and secondary metabolites with distinct structures and functionalities that provide an excellent platform for production of pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, food additives, cosmetics, and advanced materials. However, efficient isolation and purification of biomolecules from natural matrices and fermentation broths represent the bottleneck of the downstream production process. Common methods involve solvent-based extractions, including conventional liquid–liquid or solid–liquid extraction and more advanced microwave- and ultrasound-assisted extraction. In this context, solvent selection remains the key factor in developing cost-effective and environmentally friendly separation processes for biomolecule recovery. Traditionally, extraction techniques rely on harmful volatile organic compound solvents subject to increasing regulations in the chemical, food, and consumer goods industries. Recently, neoteric solvents with improved environmental, health, and safety profile have emerged as promising alternatives for sustainable processing in biotechnological applications. This chapter provides a critical overview of recent advances and future trends in green solvents for bioseparations, focusing on ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, and biobased solvents for extraction of representative biomolecules. Furthermore, modern solvent selection tools will be reviewed to provide a comprehensive framework toward designing the next generation of sustainable bioseparation processes.

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Maria Gonzalez-Miquel obtained her Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering followed by a Master in Industrial Process Engineering at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). She was awarded PhD in Chemical Engineering (summa cum laude) in 2013 working as a researcher between the Complutense University of Madrid and the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), as well as a visiting PhD research scholar at Georgia Institute of Technology (USA). Afterward, she undertook a postdoctoral research stay at the University of Notre Dame (USA). In 2014, she was appointed a lecturer in Chemical Engineering at the University of Manchester (UK). As of November 2017, she took up a new academic position in the School of Industrial Engineering at the Technical University of Madrid (Spain). Her research interest is devoted to sustainable process development combining experimental and computational methods to comprehensively address global challenges in the following areas: multiproduct integrated biorefineries; clean energy technologies; and structure–property relationships of task-specific novel solvents. Special emphasis is given to exploitation of biomass as platform to produce valuable products and exploring the potential of novel solvents (i.e., ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, and biobased solvents) in relevant separation processes. In 2018, she was featured in the Emerging Investigators special issue of Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data, and she was honored with the Franzosini Award bestowed by IUPAC Subcommittee on Solubility and Equilibrium Data.

Jesús Esteban obtained his BEng and MEng degrees in Chemical Engineering at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) after spending 1 year at the University of Texas at Austin (USA). In 2015, he finished his PhD in Madrid after a stint at the Technical University of Dortmund (Germany). As postdoctoral researcher, he joined the University of Birmingham (UK) before returning to Dortmund in 2017. As of 2018, he is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim an der Ruhr (Germany). His work has a focus on Sustainable Chemistry and revolves around the production and physicochemical characterization of value-added products derived from chemicals of renewable origin, mainly glycerol, and the study of the phenomenology and homogeneous catalyst recycling in multiphase reaction systems with special consideration of the selection of solvents. His research has been acknowledged with the Award to the best PhD thesis in Experimental Sciences of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Spain (2015), the Green Talents Award for Young Researchers in Sustainable Development of the German Ministry of Education and Research (2016), the Excellence Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (2018), and the SciFinder Future Leaders Prize of the Chemical Abstracts Service (2018).

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