Production of propene oxide in an organic liquid-phase immobilized cell reactor

Production of enantiopure styrene oxide by recombinantEscherichia coli synthesizing a two-component styrene monooxygenase

“…Previous attempts to produce optically active epoxides by epoxidation of olefinic double bonds have been hampered mainly by low-specific activities of the utilized biocatalysts (Brink and Tramper, 1987;de Bont et al, 1983;Harbron et al, 1986;Prichamont et al, 1998;Wubbolts et al, 1996), exacerbated by diffusion limitations in the cases where cells where immobilized (Brink and Tramper, 1986). Reported activities range from 2.7 U L tot −1 (Brink and Tramper, 1987) to 45 U L tot −1 (Furuhashi and Takagi, 1984).…”

“…Reported activities range from 2.7 U L tot −1 (Brink and Tramper, 1987) to 45 U L tot −1 (Furuhashi and Takagi, 1984). The enzymes that are involved in epoxidation reactions are usually complex multicomponent enzymes with cofactors (Lipscomb, 1994;Miura and Dalton, 1994;Small and Ensign, 1997;Suzuki et al, 1991) and difficult to synthesize to high levels of activity, let alone purify.…”

Epoxidation of propene by microbial cells immobilized on inorhanic supports

“…47 To reduce the toxic effect of epoxide on bacterial cells and to facilitate mass transfer, organic solvents (usually, n-hexadecane) were used as a reservoir for substrates and p r o d u~t .~,~,~ Also, some methods were proposed to decrease propylene oxide inhibition by removing epoxide from gas stream by absorption in din-octyl-phtalate, cooling, or acid hydrolysis. 6 In this study, a packed-bed bioreactor was proposed to study macrokinetics of propene oxidation performed by M. trichosporium IMV 3011 immobilized via "immuring" in carbonized silica-alumina. The main advantage of this bioreactor seemed to be good hydrodynamics parameters of inorganic support used that ensured high flow rates through biocatalyst and decreased external diffusional resistances being negligible at residence time less than 1 min.…”

Microbial metabolism of short-chain unsaturated hydrocarbons

“…To realize the biotechnological production of short-chain epoxides several novel bioreactor configurations have been proposed. The aim of these gas-solid and multiphase bioreactors is to facilitate the supply of the relatively low water-soluble gaseous substrates (oxygen and alkene) and to efficiently remove the inhibitory product [71,164,165]. Theoretically the gas-solid bioreactor, with a minimal amount of water surrounding the immobilized biocatalyst, would seem ideal to facilitate mass-transfer of gaseous substrates and product.…”

“…The multiphase bioreactor proposed for the production of 1,2-epoxypropane [164] has the disadvantage that the biocatalyst has to be immobilized to facilitate separation of the biocatalyst and the organic phase, although for the production of 1,2-epoxyoctane the classical stirred tank reactor with an organic phase has also been studied [167].…”