Abstract
The use of biocatalysts for the production of both consumer goods and building blocks for chemical synthesis is consistently gaining relevance. A significant contribution for recent advances towards further implementation of enzymes and whole cells is related to the developments in miniature reactor technology and insights into flow behavior. Due to the high level of parallelization and reduced requirements of chemicals, intensive screening of biocatalysts and process variables has become more feasible and reproducibility of the bioconversion processes has been substantially improved. The present work aims to provide an overview of the applications of miniaturized reactors in bioconversion processes, considering multi-well plates and microfluidic devices, update information on the engineering characterization of the hardware used, and present perspective developments in this area of research.
Highlights
Biocatalysis relies on the catalytic ability of enzymes to promote the chemical conversion of educts into given products
Biocatalysis differs from fermentation processes, where de novo synthesis of molecules is made from carbon and energy sources [1]
Scaling-up a bioconversion process for conventional bioreactors encompasses the use of a suitable engineering criterion, that is to be maintained constant throughout scales, such as the volumetric oxygen transfer coefficient, volumetric power consumption, mixing time or impeller tip speed, when microreactors are considered the operational conditions can be scaled by operating multiple systems in parallel, a process termed numbering-up or scaling-out
Summary
Biocatalysis relies on the catalytic ability of enzymes to promote the chemical conversion of educts into given products. The rapid and consistent emergence of microscale processing techniques that have been successfully implemented recently, based in the use of microwell plates and/or miniature/micro- bioreactors, are contributing much to speed up the development of bioconversion systems. The high level of parallelization achieved in such devices allows for the high throughput required in the different stages of development of a bioconversion process These may include the biocatalyst screening step; the generation of libraries of recombinant biocatalysts with improved activity/selectivity/stability; the selection of suitable operational conditions, both for biocatalyst production or for performing the biocatalytic step, including strategies for enzyme immobilization [24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34]. Within the scope of process intensification, microscale processing techniques have been developed that are dedicated to the downstream step [38], namely involving centrifugation [39], chromatography [40], liquid-liquid extraction [41,42] or microfiltration [43]
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