Enzyme-catalyzed reactive distillation: extension to multistep chemoenzymatic processes

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Andreas Liese; Professorin Dr.-Ing. Irina Smirnova
• Subject Area: Chemical and Thermal Process Engineering ; Biological Process Engineering
• Term: from 2011 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 210092096

In our past project the general feasibility of enzymatic reactions in reactive distillation processes was demonstrated. In the next project period we aim to make a further step and to prove the feasibility of multistep chemoenzymatic reaction systems in reactive distillation processes, integrating a chemically catalyzed racemization with a biochemically catalyzed kinetic resolution. This resulting type of a dynamic resolution is highly important e.g. for the pharmaceutical production. Due to the increased complexity of the process with two parallel reactions in an integrated setup, inline analytics based on FTIR spectroscopy will be used to control strategies for this process. Overall, the implementation of multistep (chemo)enzymatic processes in a reactive distillation will be proved and described within a process model.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants