Bioprospecting Extremophiles for Sustainable Biobased Industry

Increasing global population, environmental pressures, depletion of many resources at a rapid pace and drastic climate changes are some of the global challenges that are compelling the world to switch towards sustainable biobased industry. A sustainable economy completely relies on biomass as renewable feedstock and the transition requires the concerted action of industry, academia, politics and civil society to meet the future global challenges. Extremophiles that live in extreme conditions of temperature, salinity, acidity or alkalinity produce robust extremozymes and extremolytes of unique properties and are the potent source for the development of a bio-based economy. Using extremophiles for the production of value-added products (bioethanol, biogas, polyhydroxy alkanoates etc.) offer several advantages such as increased reaction kinetics at elevated temperatures, higher yields of products and less risk of unwanted microbial contamination. This chapter discusses the bioprospecting of extremophiles/extremozymes, which is the hotly pursued area of research, by employing various techniques such as omics analysis for the identification of countless novel enzymes and their application for improving sustainability of existing biotechnological processes towards a greener biobased industry. Furthermore, existing technologies for the production of value-added products and their limitations and strategies to overcome those limitations are also discussed.