Enhanced Production of Bioethanol by Fermentation of Autohydrolyzed and C4mimOAc-Treated Sugarcane Bagasse Employing Various Yeast Strains

Designing Effective Antimicrobial Agents: Structural Insights into the Antibiofilm Activity of Ionic Liquids

Research concerning biofilm control is critical due to the pervasive and resilient nature of biofilms, which pose significant challenges across the industrial, environmental, and healthcare sectors. Traditional antimicrobial treatments are often ineffective against these robust structures. Here, we explore the antimicrobial properties of ionic liquids (ILs) and their efficacy in biofilm disruption. By examining the structural variations of ILs, we highlight the key role of hydrophobicity, noting that longer alkyl side chains in IL cations enhance biofilm disruption and bacterial death. However, upon reaching a certain optimal chain length─usually C12 to C14─the antimicrobial activity of ILs starts to decrease. Furthermore, the symmetry and size of anions significantly impact biofilm elimination. This Perspective addresses a critical gap in biofilm research, revealing the structure-activity relationships of ILs and providing a foundation for designing more effective biofilm-disrupting agents.

Primary metabolites from overproducing microbial system using sustainable substrates

Primary (or secondary) metabolites are produced by animals, plants, or microbial cell systems either intracellularly or extracellularly. Production capabilities of microbial cell systems for many types of primary metabolites have been exploited at a commercial scale. But the high production cost of metabolites is a big challenge for most of the bioprocess industries and commercial production needs to be achieved. This issue can be solved to some extent by screening and developing the engineered microbial systems via reconstruction of the genome-scale metabolic model. The predicted genetic modification is applied for an increased flux in biosynthesis pathways toward the desired product. Wherein the resulting microbial strain is capable of converting a large amount of carbon substrate to the expected product with minimum by-product formation in the optimal operating conditions. Metabolic engineering efforts have also resulted in significant improvement of metabolite yields, depending on the nature of the products, microbial cell factory modification, and the types of substrate used. The objective of this review is to comprehend the state of art for the production of various primary metabolites by microbial strains system, focusing on the selection of efficient strain and genetic or pathway modifications, applied during strain engineering.

Energy Efficiency of Biorefinery Schemes Using Sugarcane Bagasse as Raw Material

The use of biomass to obtain value-added products has been a good alternative for reducing their environmental impacts. For this purpose, different studies have been carried out focused on the use of agro-industrial waste. One of the most commonly used raw materials has been bagasse obtained from the processing of sugarcane in high quantities in countries like Brazil, India, China, Thailand, Pakistan, Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia, Philippines, and the United States. From 1 ton of sugarcane, 280 kg of bagasse can be obtained. Sugarcane bagasse (SCB) is a waste that is rich in polysaccharides, which makes it a promising raw material for obtaining products under biorefinery concept. The objective of this work was to analyze from the energetic point of view, different biorefinery schemes in which SCB is employed as a raw material. The design and simulation of the different biorefinery schemes is performed in Aspen Plus software. From this software, it was possible to obtain the different mass and energy balances, which are used in the technical and energetic analysis. Exergy is used as a comparison tool for the energy analysis. These analyses allowed for the selection of the best biorefinery configuration from SCB.

Ionic liquids in whole-cell biocatalysis: a compromise between toxicity and efficiency

Comparison of chemical catalysis by metal complexes, enzymatic catalysis and whole-cell biocatalysis shows well-addressed advantages of the latter approach. However, a critical limitation in the practical applications originates from the high sensitivity of microorganisms to the toxic effects of organic solvents. In the present review, we consider toxic solvent properties of ionic liquid/water systems towards the development of efficient applications in practical organic transformations.