I-Corps: Enzymes for on-site generation of dilute peracetic acid

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Dilute peracetic acid (PAA) is a potent disinfectant for the food and beverage industry and for medical facilities and equipment. The estimated global market of peracetic acid in 2018 is US$600 million. The challenge with using PAA is that manufacture creates concentrated PAA solutions. These are hazardous to transport, to store and to dilute for use. The proposed solution is to make PAA on-site, which eliminates transport, make PAA only when needed, which eliminates storage, and make PAA only in the dilute less-hazardous form, which eliminates handling steps by workers. The key to this solution is an enzyme catalyzed reaction on-site from safer ingredients - acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide. To reach this application goal, the enzymes need to be more stable than they are now so they can be reused.Peracetic acid (PAA) is a strong, reactive oxidant which allows PAA to kill a broad range of microbes. This I-Corps team's goal is to produce PAA at end-user's on-site facility using enzymes by the perhydrolysis reaction of acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide. Prior research identified efficient enzymes which creates ten molecule of PAA per second for each molecule of enzyme. The fast enzyme catalyzed formation of PAA created the opportunity to make it at the application location only on demand and also in amounts needed. To make it commercially viable, the proposed approach is to use enzyme in a packed-bed reactor, with acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide fed in and produce PAA with the amounts needed. To achieve this demonstration, it requires engineering of perhydrolase enzymes to be more resistant for oxidation by PAA, immobilization of stabilized enzymes for the reusability and optimize reaction conditions for a continuous flow reactor. The current proposal seeks to commercialize the enzymatic production of PAA for safer use and thereby tests the broader hypothesis that the biotechnology micro factories can replace traditional chemical factories.