A bibliometric landscape of polyhydroxyalkanoates production from low-cost substrates by Cupriavidus necator and its perspectives for the Latin American bioeconomy

Abstract

The replacement of petroleum-based plastics with biodegradable materials emerges as a potential solution to the environmental issues caused by the constant consumption of non-degradable plastic materials. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are natural biopolymers produced by several bacteria species as an evolutive mechanism to store carbon and energy. Among these PHA-producing bacteria, the Gram-negative bacterium Cupriavidus necator has been studied as the model organism for PHA production due to its high accumulation capacity (up to 90% of dry cell weight). Nevertheless, the large-scale production of those biopolymers is still limited by the production costs, especially regarding the carbon source, which may represent up to 50% of the total cost of the PHA production process. For this study, a bibliometric analysis was conducted to investigate the trends in PHA production studies by C. necator with an emphasis on the use of low-cost substrates, in addition to the perspectives for this emerging industry in Latin America as a continent with access to significant biomass resources, agroindustry products, and byproducts. The Scopus and the Web of Science databases were used for data collection, and a total of 532 and 2995 articles were identified for the period between 1992 and 2022, and between 2000 and 2022, respectively.