13-02: Screening ofenzymes and reaction parameters under process conditions using microsystems

The inevitable depletion of fossil resources demands the exploitation of renewable resources and the development of new sustainable processes and products. In order to allow for a sustainable production of chemicals, new reactions, methods and manufacturing processes need to be established that can be handled safely, flexibly and energy efficiently. Here, (bio)catalytic syntheses represent an important tool for the sustainable production of chemicals. Via combination of organic synthesis with biocatalysts and homogenous or heterogeneous catalysis, efficient syntheses can be carried out in one pot processes as well as domino-, tandem- and sequential reactions.

 The establishment of sequential reactions requires both knowledge of the reaction kinetics of the individual steps (depending on temperature, concentration etc.) as well as information on (bio)catalyst stability. With the productivity of the overall process being limited by the slowest step or the most unstable (bio)catalyst, respectively, optimization of the reaction sequence needs to be focused towards this step. A time-consuming analysis of each step individually can be avoided by investigating the complete reaction sequence and its performance. Therefore, microreactors are constructed and analyzed that allow a detailed analysis of the reaction kinetics. The analysis can be carried out applying both FT-IR transmission measurements or confocal laser scanning microscopy.   

 Thus, a sequential reaction requires precise analytics in order to develop a process based on renewable resources. This is to be demonstrated using the conversion of levulinic acid derivatives starting from lignocellulose. Further on the coupling of enzyme action in a synthetic metabolic pathway in vitro is shown.