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In situ extraction offers an effective way to recover products during microbial production of fatty alcohols, which can be operated in multi-cycle mode. Workup steps may be required to increase the driving force for the extraction or to minimize by-product accumulation. Different workup steps, including intermittent glucose addition, dodecane change, and buffer change, were investigated in this study. We demonstrated that reconfiguration of these workup steps (e.g. rare intermittent workup steps) between bioconversion cycles led to significantly improved productivity and sustainability. The optimized reconfiguration enhanced the yield (0.071 g fatty alcohol per g glucose) while reducing the E-factor to 34.98, which was 120-fold lower than that of the control condition without in situ extraction. The results from this work shed light on the sustainable process development of the fatty alcohol production.

Immobilization methods have emerged as feasible solutions for increasing the reusability of biocatalysts and for simplifying their separation from the desired products. Immobilized biocatalysts can directly be applied to a continuous-flow system, such as tubular or packed bed reactors. Such continuous-flow systems with immobilized biocatalysts are promising tools for enhancing the sustainability of bioprocessing. This minireview discusses important considerations for successfully developing biocatalyst-based continuous-flow systems, namely immobilization techniques, mass transfer and reactor design. The key sustainability aspects of these systems are highlighted along with recent examples.

Nanoparticle capture and elimination by the immune system are great obstacles for drug delivery. Camouflaging nanoparticles with cell membrane represents a promising strategy to communicate and negotiate with the immune system. As a novel class of nanotherapeutics, such biomimetic nanoparticles inherit specific biological functionalities of the source cells (e.g., erythrocytes, immune cells, cancer cells and platelets) in order to evade immune elimination, prolong circulation time, and even target a disease region by virtue of the homing tendency of the cell membrane protein. In this review, we begin with an overview of different cell membranes that can be utilized to create a biointerface on nanoparticles. Subsequently, we elaborate on the state-of-the-art of cell membrane biomimetic nanoparticles for drug delivery. In particular, a summary of data on circulation capacity and targeting efficiency by camouflaged nanoparticles is presented. In addition to cancer therapy, inflammation treatment, as an emerging application of biomimetic nanoparticles, is specifically included. The challenges and outlook of this technology are discussed.

Flow chemistry has attracted considerable attention as it offers several advantages over conventional batch chemistry. Several multiphase reactions, including liquid–liquid reactions, are more efficient in flow due to intensified mass transfer. This observation has led to many developments of enabling tools in recent years. In this minireview, an up-to-date overview of such tools will be highlighted. In addition, interesting examples of the integrated continuous-flow process with liquid–liquid reactions will also be presented.