Organic Chemicals from Bioprocesses in China

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, China has successfully established a modern biotechnology industry from almost nothing. Presently, China is a major producer of a vast array of products involving bioprocesses, for some China is even the world's top producer. The ever-increasing list of products includes organic acids, amino acids, antibiotics, solvents, chiral chemicals, biopesticides, and biopolymers. Herein, the research and development of bioprocesses in China will be reviewed briefly. We will concentrate on three categories of products: small molecules produced via fermentation, biopolymers produced via fermentation and small chemicals produced by enzyme-catalyzed reactions. In comparison with the traditional chemical process, in which, nonrenewable mineral resources are generally used, products in the first and second categories noted above can use renewable bioresources as raw materials. The bioprocesses are generally energy saving and environmentally benign. For products developed via the third category, although the raw materials still need to be obtained from mineral resources, the biocatalysts are more effective with higher selectivity and productivity, and the bioprocesses occur under ambient temperature and pressure, therefore, these are "green processes." Most of the products such as citric acid, xanthan and acrylamide etc., discussed in this paper have been in large-scale commercial production in China. Also introduced herein are three scientists, Prof.

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