《生命科学》 2026, 38(10): 1875-1891
生物混合机器人在环境安全领域的应用进展
摘 要：
近年来，生态环境风险呈现复杂化、隐蔽化和突发化特征，传统理化监测与处置技术逐渐暴露时空覆盖不足、动态追踪能力弱等局限。生物混合机器人通过耦合生物与人工组件，为环境安全治理提供新范式。本文围绕常态化监测、风险溯源、污染削减和生态修复四类场景，综述代表性进展，重点评估其在污染监测、复杂环境机动、靶向清除等方面的应用潜力，并讨论活体模块长期稳定性与系统可控性等瓶颈，展望其走向真实环境应用的关键路径。
通讯作者：庄珺 , Email:zhuangjun@siss.sh.cn
Abstract:
Environmental risks are becoming increasingly complex, latent, and abrupt, while conventional physicochemical monitoring and remediation technologies are showing clear limitations in long-term in situ surveillance, access to confined and unstructured environments, identification of unknown pollutants, and low-disturbance intervention. Biohybrid robots, which integrate living organisms, biological tissues, or biomolecular components with engineered structures, sensing units, actuation modules, and control systems, provide a new technological route for environmental safety by combining the sensitivity and adaptability of living systems with the programmability and scalability of artificial platforms. This review aims to examine recent progress in biohybrid robotics for environmental safety, summarize its major application scenarios and technical characteristics, and discuss the conditions required for the transition from laboratory proof-of-concept to deployable field systems. The review is organized around four core stages of the environmental safety chain. First, in routine monitoring, biohybrid robots can use effect-level biological signals, such as microbial electrochemical responses and animal behavioral changes, to provide continuous early warning of compound or previously unknown contamination that may be missed by conventional concentration-based sensing alone. Second, in source tracing and evidence collection, systems based on insects, jellyfish, olfactory receptors, and related biological components show particular promise for locating pollutant sources, tracking dynamic plumes, identifying spatial boundaries, and collecting field evidence in turbulent airflows, confined terrestrial spaces, and complex aquatic environments. Third, in pollution mitigation, biohybrid systems built from microalgae, rotifers, engineered microbes, and functional materials have demonstrated the ability to actively capture, concentrate, transform, or degrade dispersed contaminants, thereby shifting remediation from passive contact to targeted intervention. Fourth, in ecological restoration, living materials, growth-responsive structures, and plant- or animal-assisted hybrid systems may support structural reinforcement, vegetation establishment, and the recovery of key ecological functions under heterogeneous and fragile environmental conditions. This review argues that the field is moving from isolated feasibility demonstrations toward scenario-oriented system integration, but broad deployment remains constrained by several
bottlenecks: the limited long-term viability and functional stability of living modules, insufficient controllability and autonomy in open environments, incomplete biosafety and ethical governance, and the absence of standardized evaluation protocols. Future work should therefore prioritize robust encapsulation and maintenance of living components, low-power sensing and control, retrievability and fail-safe disposal, biosafety-by-design strategies, and tiered testing standards linked to specific environmental scenarios. In practice, pilot demonstrations should begin in closed or semi-closed settings before gradual expansion to real-world environmental applications.
Communication Author：ZHUANG Jun , Email:zhuangjun@siss.sh.cn
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