First attempts in bioelectrochemical engineering

Many of the most important physiological processes are based on oxidoreduction chains involving numerous successive enzyme-catalyzed oxydoreduction reactions. Nevertheless, these reactions have not,et been exploited to develop synthesis processes, although the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries have a great need of such processes, which could achieve specific transformations with very high selectivity. On the one hand, the paper gives a concise account of the needs of the fine chemical industry and, on the other hand, a description of various attempts made to design electrodes and reactors in order to scale-up bioelectrochemical reactions to the preparative scale.