Process Modeling and Optimization in Bioproducts Manufacturing

Dear Colleagues,

Bioproducts, including biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, biofuels, biopolymers, specialty biochemicals, food ingredients, and nutraceuticals, have become an essential part of the emerging bioeconomy and play an increasingly critical role in human health, energy security, and environmental sustainability. Global demand for these products continues to rise, driven by an aging population, the transition away from petrochemical feedstocks, and the urgent need to decarbonize manufacturing. Unlike conventional chemical processes, however, bioproducts manufacturing must manage living systems: complex cellular metabolism, raw-material variability, highly nonlinear dynamics, long cultivation timescales, and strict quality and regulatory requirements. These characteristics make purely empirical, trial-and-error development slow, expensive, and often insufficient to guarantee consistent product quality across scales.

Process systems engineering offers a powerful framework to meet these challenges. Advances in mechanistic modeling, data-driven machine learning, and hybrid approaches that combine first-principles knowledge with process data are reshaping how bioprocesses are designed, monitored, controlled, and scaled. At the same time, digital transformation, through digital twins, process analytical technology (PAT), quality-by-design (QbD), and Industry 4.0, is enabling more predictive, robust, and sustainable manufacturing. Because experimentation at relevant scales in biomanufacturing is time-consuming and costly, modeling, simulation, and optimization are often the most effective, and sometimes the only, tools for rational decision-making in process design and operation.

This Special Issue on “Process Modeling and Optimization in Bioproducts Manufacturing” will compile novel research that either applies process modeling, simulation, and optimization to the analysis and improvement of bioproducts manufacturing, or develops new methods and tools that are tailored to the unique features of biological systems. Contributions addressing microbial, enzymatic, mammalian cell, plant-cell, and cell-free systems across both upstream and downstream unit operations are all welcome.

Topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• Mechanistic, kinetic, and metabolic modeling of bioprocesses.
• Data-driven and machine-learning models for soft sensing, prediction, and fault detection in biomanufacturing.
• Hybrid (first-principles + data-driven) modeling approaches, including residual correction and Bayesian updating.
• Digital twins and Industry 4.0 applications in bioproducts manufacturing.
• Process analytical technology (PAT), real-time monitoring, and quality-by-design (QbD).
• Optimization, advanced control, and scheduling of upstream and downstream bioprocesses.
• Scale-up, scale-down, and technology transfer from the laboratory to commercial manufacturing.
• Techno-economic analysis, life-cycle assessment, and supply-chain modeling for bioproducts.
• Process integration and intensification for sustainable biomanufacturing and the circular bioeconomy.
• Applications across biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, biofuels, biochemicals, biomaterials, food, and nutraceuticals.

We look forward to your contributions and thank you for considering submitting to this Special Issue.

Sincerely,

Prof. Dr. Jun-woo Kim
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.