Cyanobacteria Biotechnology: Challenges and Prospects

The interest in exploiting renewable carbon sources for the sustainable manufacturing of chemicals has increased due to global warming and climatic instability. Cyanobacteria have tremendous potential for using light and CO2 as the only sources of energy and carbon, respectively, making them excellent cellular factories for manufacturing valuable compounds through carbon-negative processes. Although cyanobacteria biotechnology offers immense potential, however, there are still several challenges in applying cyanobacterial technology starting from lab to industrial scales. Biotechnological innovations are required to address a number challenges including limited biomass productivity, poor tolerance to various abiotic and biotic factors during outdoor cultivation, and difficult harvesting. These issues could be addressed by employing various technologies including synthetic biology, host engineering, and metabolic engineering. Converting cyanobacterial biomass into bioproducts including biohydrogen, bioethanol, biogas, biomethane, and biopolymers has been explored in this chapter. Various methods have also been explored to enhance the ability of the strains to produce a particular amount of biomass or bioproducts through genetic engineering. This chapter also discusses several viewpoints regarding the potential commercialization of cyanobacterial technologies in the future.