Christian Wandrey

Process development and economic aspects in enzyme engineering. Acylase L-methionine system

An integral study of chemical reaction engineering and process development including economic aspects was carried out using the optical resolution of aminoacids by means of native and carrier-fixed acylase as example. Continuous operation is not only possible with carrier-fixed enzymes but also with native enzymes using ultrafiltration devices for catalyst retention. It could experimentally be proved on a 1 kg L-methionine/d-scale that the use of soluble acylase in membrane-reactors is economically superior to the carrier-fixed type in the tube-reactors. In all cases where immobilization of enzymes cannot be achieved with high activity yield or remarkable increase in stability, the homogeneous catalysis with soluble enzymes in continuously operating membrane-reactors might be a very promising alternative. — These studies were performed at the “Institut fur Technische Che-mie der Technischen Universitat Hannover”, West-Germany.

Aldolases for Use in Carbohydrate Synthesis: Enzymatic Reaction Engineering as a Tool for Process Optimization

In many cases Aldolases have been proved to be useful for the synthesis of carbohydrates [1]. Here we present the optimization of reaction conditions for the application of N-acetylneuraminic acid aldolase for the synthesis of N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac) in a continuous process which is suitable for large-scale production.