环境生物技术所从事的是“使微生物群落能为人类社会提供服务”，它的成功来自与原核微生物的协同作用，其广泛的代谢能力可以被利用来破坏污染物的结构并产生可再生材料。要想发挥微生物的作用，需要通过微生物分子生态学、分析化学和数学建模等学科的发展去很好地理解它，从而看清微生物黑箱模型内部的本质。同样重要的是将对生物技术的理解转化为“利用好微生物以使他们为我们工作”。这种转化需要新颖的反应器设计，先进材料的利用，以及与用户的良好合作。成立于2005年的亚利桑那州立大学Swette环境生物技术中心，就是将相关的科学与工程领域中的多种方法和手段汇集在一起，形成了一种跨学科的研究中心。该中心强调团队协作精神，并与世界各地的研究者和实践者进行合作。介绍了3个新的技术：用于消减水中许多氧化性污染物的H2基膜生物膜反应器（MBfR）；用于有机污染物转化为可再能源的微生物电化学电池（MXCs）；以及用于加速难生物降解有机污染物脱毒的光催化与生物降解紧密结合的光-生物催化技术说明了中心是如何将基本原理应用于“利用好微生物”的。%Environmental biotechnology involves ″managing microbial communities to provide serv-ices to society″.Its success comes from partnering with prokaryotic microorganisms,whose wide-ran-ging metabolic capabilities can be harnessed to destroy pollutants and to generate renewable materi-als.Partnering with microorganisms requires that we understand them well,and important advances in molecular microbial ecology,analytical chemistry,and mathematical modeling are making it possible to look inside the black box of microbial communities.Also crucial is translating the understanding to biotechnological processes that ″work for the microorganisms so that they work for us″.Successful translation demands novel reactor designs,application of advanced materials,and partnering with practitioners and users.The Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology,founded in at Arizona State University in 2005 ,brings together the science and engineering tools in an inter-disciplinary en-vironment.The Center emphasizes teamwork and collaborations with research and practice partners a-round the world.Three new technologies illustrate how the Center applies these principles to ″work for the microorganisms″:the H2 -based membrane biofilm reactor (MBfR)for reducing many oxi-dized contaminants in water,the microbial electrochemical cells (MXCs ) for converting organic wastes into renewable products,and Intimately Coupled PhotoBioCatalysis (ICPBC)to detoxify very difficult to biodegrade organic pollutants.
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