Continuous separation of biotransformation products

Biotechnology is being increasingly used in industry to allow greener more sustainable processing. Benefits may include milder reaction conditions such as lower temperature/pressure, fewer side-products and higher specificity. Subsequent complex mixtures may be formed during this new approach which commands more sophisticated downstream processing (DSP) in order to isolate and purify the target molecules. This project will develop new continuous flow separation technologies and build on existing work on automated measurement and pH control in continuous flow. Lab-scale continuous solid-liquid and liquid-liquid separation equipment developed and then tested in representative biotransformation work-ups. Both solid/liquid extraction technology is of interest aiming to address challenges such as separation of excess fatty acids or alcohols from ester and amide materials, and more broadly, removing undesirable impurities from Croda's final products. The aqueous solution, that typically contains buffers, enzymes, cofactors and by products, can be recycled. The project will look at reuse of the solution to determine the accumulation of materials and define the purge level to enable a continuous steady-state process. This will provide data for large-scale operation to facilitate industrial take up of the technology. Croda are investigating biocatalysis using enzymes as well as fermentation and other biotransformation routes to speciality chemicals. Advancing Croda's separation and purification capabilities is of high interest. Striving for higher sustainability and higher quality is motivating Croda to seek more efficient approaches to purification. These methods can be applied more generally in chemical production, not just biotechnology