Hans Christian Holm

Upscaling of Enzymatic Processes

Abstract Since the late 1990s, enzyme use in the oils and fats industry has evolved into state-of-the-art processing. Today, enzymes are used in more than 200 production sites around the world. The key to this wide acceptance of enzymatic processing has been optimization of the enzyme production economy, and especially technology developments on how to apply the enzymes in an efficient way in the different applications to improve yields and product qualities. Up-scaling of these different enzyme processes has predominantly been done in close collaboration between enzyme suppliers and early adopters in the industry, very often in collaboration with engineering companies. This chapter focusses on history and key process learnings from the implementation of enzymes for: production of structured lipids and margarine stock, refining of vegetable oils, production of concentrated omega-3 from fish oils, production of biodiesel from low-quality feedstocks, and production of high-purity cosmetic ingredients. Life-cycle assessments have proved the environmental benefit of enzyme technology compared to chemistry-based routes.