Microbes, meat and materials: biotech meets climatetech

Scaling Challenges

Scaling biomanufacturing from lab to industrial levels presents significant challenges. Arye Lipman explains that while biotech has made strides at the bench scale, moving to larger scales like 1,000 or 10,000 liters requires new development due to differing protocols and costs 1. The downstream processing, which involves treating and purifying biomass, is a major cost factor that differs greatly from lab-scale operations 1.

The vast majority of costs come after that phase where you have to process this wet biomass and spin it down and treat it and purify it.

--- Arye Lipman

Despite the diversification of biotech applications, the majority of investment still targets pharma, leaving climate-related biotech applications in a nascent stage 2.

   

Engineering Control

Biotech faces engineering challenges, particularly in maintaining process sterility and control. Arye Lipman notes that growing cells in large steel tanks requires stringent controls to prevent contamination, unlike traditional manufacturing processes 3. This need for sterility and control makes some tasks better suited to engineering solutions rather than biological ones.

It takes a lot of work to make sure no other things grow in there.

--- Arye Lipman

Additionally, the energy input for biological processes is minimal compared to chemical processes, which often require high temperatures or electricity 3.