Development of continuous enzymatic production using a continuous oscillatory baffled reactor

随着人们对可持续性和减少工业过程中的碳足迹的日益关注，生物催化越来越被视为解决这些问题的方法。此外，酶法生产的材料也可能受益于较少的下游加工步骤，并可能具有更高的质量。然而，在较温和的反应条件和较长的反应时间之间往往存在权衡，特别是在大规模完成的情况下。因此，能够在不影响产量的情况下进行生物催化反应的技术对于使Croda能够建立关键药物的更绿色生产至关重要。连续振荡折流板反应器(COBR)已被确定为一种可用于优化酶反应同时保持产量的技术。基于Croda在生物催化反应方面的先验知识，以及之前与Ni教授在COBR中开发新的连续生产，BBSRC/Croda PhD项目旨在建立对药物反应过程、反应动力学、影响动力学和反应转化的参数的基本理解；建立与流体力学相结合的动力学模型，以预测反应转化和反应器性能；评估商用酶以及Croda单独和与其他人开发的那些酶的活性；评估使用游离酶(S)和负载酶(S)的成本影响，并设计和测试不断去除和回收酶的创新方法。

With an increased focus on sustainability and reducing the carbon footprint of industrial processes, biocatalysis is increasingly seen as a solution to these problems. Furthermore, material produced enzymatically may also benefit from fewer downstream processing steps and may be of higher quality. However, there is often a trade-off between milder reaction conditions and longer reaction times, particularly when done at scale. Therefore, technologies that could allow biocatalytic reactions to occur without having to compromise on throughput are crucial in enabling Croda to establish greener production of key pharmaceutical chemicals.The Continuous Oscillatory Baffled Reactor (COBR) has been identified as a technology that could be used to optimise enzymatic reactions whilst maintaining throughput. Building upon Croda's prior knowledge in biocatalytic reactions and the development of novel continuous production in the COBR with Prof Ni previously, this BBSRC/Croda PhD project aims to establish the fundamental understanding of a pharmaceutical reaction process, the reaction kinetics, parameters affecting kinetics and reaction conversion; to build a kinetic model that is coupled with fluid mechanics in order to predict reaction conversion and reactor performance; to assess the activities of commercially available enzymes as well as these that were developed by Croda both on their own and in combination with others; to evaluate the cost implications of using free enzyme(s) versus supported enzyme(s) and to design and test innovative means of removing and recovering of enzyme continuously.