Intensification of metallo-enzyme production to unlock sustainable biocatalytic hydrogenation
Lead Participant:
HYDREGEN LIMITED
Abstract
**HydRegen** is a 2021 spin-out from the University of Oxford's Department of Chemistry.
**Our vision:** The HydRegen technologies offer the potential for cleaner, safer, faster and cheaper chemical manufacture.
Deep understanding of biology and chemistry allow the HydRegen team to select the best components from biology and use them to develop robust biotechnologies that solve real problems in the chemicals sectors.
We expect our technologies to play a part in the UK chemicals sector meeting ambitious Net Zero emissions targets (by 2050) and increasing adoption of enabling technologies such as Industrial Biocatalysis and continuous flow process.
Currently we are addressing challenges in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and speciality chemicals (e.g. flavours and fragrances) and exploring the potential of our technologies for larger-scale, lower-value chemical production.
**Dr Morra's Group (University of Nottingham)** have expertise in novel hydrogenase enzymes that are able to cycle H2 and H+. Theses enzymes are of interest to HydRegen due to their unusual balance in 'ease of production' and 'ease of handling'. Dr Morra's team have know-how and facilities in enzyme production spanning early-stage academic research through to evaluation of scalable enzyme production in bioreactors (up to 100L).
**Project focus:** here we tackle challenges in manufacturing readiness of the HydRegen technologies by intensifying and scaling enzyme production, and applying the enzyme generated to a demonstrator process for quinuclidinol production. Quinuclidinol is an important chemical building-block present in a number of active pharmaceuticals.
Dr Morra and HydRegen started their collaboration in 2022 via BBSRC-NIBB funding. This project allows both partners to realise the potential of this collaboration.
**Project outputs:**
* Lower cost-of-production of three enzymes that are critical to HydRegen.
* Use of these enzymes for production of chemical building-block quninuclidinol at \>10g scale.
* Validation of the cost and sustainability metrics for quinuclidinol manufacture.
* New IP (enzyme production, biocatalyst formulation, process chemistry).
* 'License-ready' bio-based manufacturing route for quinuclidinol that meets the needs for UK-based production (cost, foot-print, productivity, safety, sustainability).
**Our vision:** The HydRegen technologies offer the potential for cleaner, safer, faster and cheaper chemical manufacture.
Deep understanding of biology and chemistry allow the HydRegen team to select the best components from biology and use them to develop robust biotechnologies that solve real problems in the chemicals sectors.
We expect our technologies to play a part in the UK chemicals sector meeting ambitious Net Zero emissions targets (by 2050) and increasing adoption of enabling technologies such as Industrial Biocatalysis and continuous flow process.
Currently we are addressing challenges in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and speciality chemicals (e.g. flavours and fragrances) and exploring the potential of our technologies for larger-scale, lower-value chemical production.
**Dr Morra's Group (University of Nottingham)** have expertise in novel hydrogenase enzymes that are able to cycle H2 and H+. Theses enzymes are of interest to HydRegen due to their unusual balance in 'ease of production' and 'ease of handling'. Dr Morra's team have know-how and facilities in enzyme production spanning early-stage academic research through to evaluation of scalable enzyme production in bioreactors (up to 100L).
**Project focus:** here we tackle challenges in manufacturing readiness of the HydRegen technologies by intensifying and scaling enzyme production, and applying the enzyme generated to a demonstrator process for quinuclidinol production. Quinuclidinol is an important chemical building-block present in a number of active pharmaceuticals.
Dr Morra and HydRegen started their collaboration in 2022 via BBSRC-NIBB funding. This project allows both partners to realise the potential of this collaboration.
**Project outputs:**
* Lower cost-of-production of three enzymes that are critical to HydRegen.
* Use of these enzymes for production of chemical building-block quninuclidinol at \>10g scale.
* Validation of the cost and sustainability metrics for quinuclidinol manufacture.
* New IP (enzyme production, biocatalyst formulation, process chemistry).
* 'License-ready' bio-based manufacturing route for quinuclidinol that meets the needs for UK-based production (cost, foot-print, productivity, safety, sustainability).
Lead Participant | Project Cost | Grant Offer |
|---|---|---|
| HYDREGEN LIMITED | £71,751 | £ 50,226 |
Participant |
||
| UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM | £21,051 | £ 21,051 |
People |
ORCID iD |
| Holly Reeve (Project Manager) |