New bioproduction systems for chemicals and fuels: Needs and new development

Currently used bioproduction systems for chemicals and fuels are primarily based on sugar-containing substrates. They have inherent limitations regarding substrate sustainability and affordability, product spectrum and yield, and costs for up- and downstream processing. To overcome some of these major burdens new bioproduction strategies and systems are being developed, including biorefinery, electro-biotechnology (use of electricity for biosynthesis) and C1 bioeconomy using synthetic biological systems based on C1 carbon feedstocks such as CO, CO2, methane, methanol and formic acid. In this article, the promises, development trends and challenges of these new bioproduction systems and concepts are briefly summarized and discussed.