Challenges and Solutions For Development of Gas Limited Bioprocesses Illustrated By the Biological Methane Production (BMP) Process Development

This review evidences challenges and is presenting solutions for the establishment of a development strategy for gas limited bioprocesses converting gaseous substrate(s) to gaseous product(s). First the recent trend in gas based bioprocess development is presented with a special emphasis on waste to value applications and power to gas (P2G) technologies. The concept of gas limited bioprocess is then introduced with biological methane production (BMP) process. Then, three different categories were established in order to classify gas fermentative bioprocesses as function of the targeted product(s). This allowed segregating gas based and gas limited bioprocesses between them with respect to the encountered process limitation. Furthermore, challenges such as selecting proper analytic technologies (PATs), experimental method for media development or issues in modelling and scale-up were identified from literature. Approaches are then presented for establishing a robust development strategy for gasesous substrate(s) to gaseous product(s) (GtoG) bioprocesses at early stage. Influences on development activities with respect to knowledge extraction and control on the bioprocess performance are then highlighted. Finally, it was shown how adaptation of existing bioprocess development strategies can be done for gas limited bioprocesses in order to fasten the way towards technology readiness for industrial applications. Hence, this work will benefit workers involved in the development, optimization, modelling or scale-up of gas limited bioprocesses by providing a comprehensive work flow with specific considerations on key process aspects of gas limited bioprocesses.