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Production of polyhydroxyalkanoates from renewable resources: a review on prospects, challenges and applications

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Abstract

Bioplastics replace synthetic plastics of petrochemical origin, which contributes challenge to both polymer quality and economics. Novel polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA)-composite materials, with desirable product quality, could be developed, thus targeting the global plastics market, in the coming years. It is possible that PHA can be a greener substitute for their petroleum-based competitors since they are simply decomposed, which may lessen the pressure on municipal and industrial waste management systems. PHA production has proven to be the bottleneck in industrial application and commercialization because of the high price of carbon substrates and downstream processes required to achieve reliability. Bacterial PHA production by these municipal and industrial wastes, which act as a cheap, renewable carbon substrate, eliminates waste management hassles and acts as an efficient substitute for synthetic plastics. In the present review, challenges and opportunities related to the commercialization of polyhydroxyalkanoates are discussed and presented. Moreover, it discusses critical steps of their production process, feedstock evaluation, optimization strategies, and downstream processes. This information may provide us the complete utilization of bacterial PHA during possible applications in packaging, nutrition, medicine, and pharmaceuticals.

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Abbreviations

%:

Percentage

°C:

Degree Celsius

CDM:

Cell dry mass

CHCl3 :

Chloroform

DCW:

Dry cell weight

h:

Hour

lcl-PHA:

Long-chain length-polyhydroxyalkanoate

mcl-PHA:

Medium-chain length-polyhydroxyalkanoate

MPs:

Microplastics

mL:

Millilitres

Mt:

Million tonne

min:

Minute

NaOCl:

Sodium hypochlorite

PA:

Polyacryl

PCL:

Polycaprolactone

PBAT:

Polybutyrate adipate terephthalate

PET:

Polyethylene terephthalate

PHA:

Polyhydroxyalkanoate

PBS:

Poly(butylene succinate)

PHB:

Polyhydroxybutyrate

PHBV:

Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate)

PI:

Polyimides

PLA:

Polylactic acid, PU, Polyurethanes

scl-PHA:

Short-chain length-polyhydroxyalkanoate

WCO:

Waste cooking oil

WFO:

Waste frying oil

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Department of Microbiology, Kanya Gurukul Girls Campus, Gurukul Kangri University, Haridwar, India. SK is grateful to the UGC for providing a senior research fellowship. Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are created by Biorender.com.

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Authors

Contributions

RPM: data curation, formal analysis, writing—original draft, figures, table, abstract, and conceptualisation. SK: formal analysis, review, formatting and conceptualisation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Richa Prasad Mahato.

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The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

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Communicated by Yusuf Akhter.

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Mahato, R.P., Kumar, S. & Singh, P. Production of polyhydroxyalkanoates from renewable resources: a review on prospects, challenges and applications. Arch Microbiol 205, 172 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-023-03499-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-023-03499-8

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