The team behind a new national facility in the UK says will transform the way vital chemicals are manufactured.
The £12m National Industrial Biotechnology Facility (NIBF) at the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) in Wilton, Redcar, will help firms replace outmoded traditional chemical processing techniques with cleaner, greener, less wasteful methods.
It provides an open access trial and development centre so that businesses can test their ideas to ensure they work and are viable before investing heavily.
GlaxoSmithKline is currently working on a development project with CPI.
CPI is working with a UK Research Institute to take waste biomass and convert it to bioenergy and the demonstrator unit is under construction at the NIBF.
Chris Dowle, director of advanced processing at CPI said: "This facility will benefit companies by allowing them to embrace, test and subsequently apply sustainable manufacturing and energy production. Using industrial biotechnology for modern manufacturing will create reductions in millions of tonnes of waste and energy and more efficient use of the worlds resources."
The NIBF works by using enzymes in biotransformations to produce molecules that are then used to make everything from chemicals, pharmaceuticals and polymers to colorants, pesticides and biodiesel.
CPI works in partnership with the Centre of Excellence for Biocatalysis, Biotransformations and Biomanufacturing (CoEBio3) research facility based in Manchester - enabling a new process to be followed seamlessly from conception to production.