Engineering the convergence of chemistry and biology: resolving the incompatibility of bio- and chemical catalysis

工程化学与生物学的融合：解决生物催化和化学催化的不相容性

• 批准号: EP/E010571/2
• 负责人: Alexei Lapkin
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Warwick
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2009 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FE010571%2F2
• 关键词: Engineering; convergence; chemistry; biology; resolving

This project will develop new approaches to enable the transition from petrochemicals to the bio (renewable) feedstocks supply chain. The challenge is to obtain efficient production of synthetically useful chemicals from highly functionalized bulk feedstock materials, complex mixed feedstocks and new types of by-products. Biocatalytic transformations will be used to converge a large variety of feedstocks into a small number of building blocks for further synthesis, exploiting the excellent adaptability and selectivity of biocatalysts compared with chemical catalysts. These building block small molecules will be further effectively transformed using chemical catalysis into functional high-value products. Since it is not cost effective or practical to separate the biological products prior to chemical transformation, we shall develop novel reaction systems with fully integrated bio- and chemo-catalysis. There are very few examples of such reaction systems at present, due to the fundamental incompatibility between chemo- and biocatalysts in terms of operating conditions (temperature, salinity, solvents), and toxicity of small molecules to many biocatalysts. We shall solve this problem by spatial and temporal micro-separation of bio- and chemocatalytic systems such that both are operated within mutually compatible conditions, approaching the optimal conditions for both. This requires the design of new materials and reactor concepts, and modification of catalysts. This proof-of-principle project aims to demonstrate the developed concepts on the example of conversion of glucose and glycerol to 1,3-propanediol and lactic acid by whole cells, followed by a number of chemical transformations leading to esters, olefins, ethers, aldehydes, inter alia.

该项目将开发新的方法，以实现从石化产品到生物（可再生）原料供应链的过渡。所面临的挑战是从高度官能化的散装原料材料、复杂的混合原料和新型副产物中获得合成有用化学品的有效生产。生物催化转化将用于将各种各样的原料聚合成少量的结构单元以供进一步合成，利用生物催化剂与化学催化剂相比的优异适应性和选择性。这些小分子将通过化学催化进一步有效转化为功能性高价值产品。由于在化学转化之前分离生物产物不具有成本效益或不切实际，因此我们将开发具有完全集成的生物和化学催化的新型反应系统。由于化学催化剂和生物催化剂在操作条件（温度、盐度、溶剂）方面的根本不相容性以及小分子对许多生物催化剂的毒性，目前这种反应系统的实例非常少。我们将通过生物和化学催化系统的空间和时间微分离来解决这个问题，使得两者在相互兼容的条件下操作，接近两者的最佳条件。这就需要设计新的材料和反应器概念，以及改进催化剂。该原理验证项目旨在展示已开发的概念，例如通过全细胞将葡萄糖和甘油转化为1，3-丙二醇和乳酸，然后进行一些化学转化，产生酯，烯烃，醚，醛等。