Development of continuous enzymatic production using a continuous oscillatory baffled reactor

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.