Hybrid Carbon-Based Nanostructured Platforms for the Advanced Bioreactors

Mankind faces several global challenges such as chronic and acute hunger, global poverty, energydeficiency and environment conservation. Common biotechnologies based on batch, fluidbed andother similar processes are now extensively used for the production of a wide range of productssuch as antibiotics, biofuels, cultured and fermented food products. Unfortunately, these processessuffer from low efficiency, high energy demand, low controllability and rapid biocatalyst degradationby microbiological attack, and thus still are not capable of seriously addressing the global hungerand energy deficiency challenges. Moreover, sustainable future technologies require minimizingthe environmental impact of toxic by-products by implementing the “life produces organic matter,organicmatter sustains life” principle. Nanostructure-based biotechnology is one of the most promisingapproaches that can help to solve these challenges. In this work we briefly review the uniquefeatures of the carbon-based nanostructured platforms, with some attention paid to other nanomaterials.We discuss the main building blocks and processes to design and fabricate novel platforms,with a focus on dense arrays of the vertically-aligned nanostructures, mainly carbon nanotubes andgraphene. Advantages and disadvantages of these systems are considered.