Integrated Biorefinery Design with Techno‐Economic and Life Cycle Assessment Tools in Polyhydroxyalkanoates Processing

Abstract

Abstract To support and move toward a sustainable bioeconomy, the production of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) using renewable biomass has acquired more attention. However, expensive biomass pretreatment and low yield of PHAs pose significant disadvantages in its large‐scale production. To overcome such limitations, the most recent advances in metabolic engineering strategies used to develop high‐performance strains that are leading to a new manufacturing concept converting biomass to PHAs with co‐products such as amino acids, proteins, biohydrogen, biosurfactants, and various fine chemicals are critically summarized. This review article presents a comprehensive roadmap that highlights the integrated biorefinery strategies, lifecycle analysis, and techno‐economic assessment for sustainable and economic PHAs production. Finally, current and future challenges that must be addressed to transfer this technology to real‐world applications are reviewed.

Keywords

• integrated biorefinery
• life cycle assessment
• polyhydroxyalkanoates
• techno‐economic analysis