Process Intensification of Immobilized Enzyme Reactors

Abstract

The advantages of enzyme catalysis are high specificity and (enantio) selectivity resulting in reactions with little or no by-products. The applications of enzymes in aqueous medium are well established and have been extended to organic synthesis more recently. The two limiting factors for large scale application of enzymes are continuous processing and process scale-up.Process intensification has the potential to overcome these challenges posed by conventional processing methods by incorporating a novel reactor design or by using alternate processing methods. Process intensified reactors like membrane reactors, microreactors, monolithic reactors and rotating disc reactors for enzyme catalyzed reactions will be discussed in this chapter. These reactors have shown an improved performance compared to the enzymatic reactors currently in use and future opportunities include application for enzymatic catalysis on an industrial scale and advances in reactor design and process control.

A Regenerative Business Model with Flexible, Modular and Scalable Processes in A Post-Covid Era: The Case of The Spinning Mesh Disc Reactor (SMDR)

“…The key challenge however is that enzymes are expensive catalysts in its recovery and re-use which limits their application in the fine chemical industry. Enzyme immobilisation has shown to enhance the cost-efficiency of the bio-catalytic process since the catalytic activity is maintained for a longer duration which allows for recovery and re-use of enzymes [21]. However, utilisation of immobilised catalysts requires increased mixing, hence increasing energy costs and catalyst disintegration, which until now limits the application of the current batch reactor design.…”