The Promises and the Challenges of Biotransformations in Microflow

Abstract

The challenges of transition toward the postpetroleum world shed light on the biocatalysis as the most sustainable way for the valorization of biobased raw materials. However, its industrial exploitation strongly relies on integration with innovative technologies such as microscale processing. Microflow devices remarkably accelerate biocatalyst screening and engineering, as well as evaluation of process parameters, and intensify biocatalytic processes in multiphase systems. The inherent feature of microfluidic devices to operate in a continuous mode brings additional interest for their use in chemoenzymatic cascade systems and in connection with the downstream processing units. Further steps toward automation and analytics integration, as well as computer‐assisted process development, will significantly affect the industrial implementation of biocatalysis and fulfill the promises of the bioeconomy. This review provides an overview of recent examples on implementation of microfluidic devices into various stages of biocatalytic process development comprising ultrahigh‐throughput biocatalyst screening, highly efficient biocatalytic process design including specific immobilization techniques for long‐term biocatalyst use, integration with other (bio)chemical steps, and/or downstream processing.

The rise of continuous flow biocatalysis – fundamentals, very recent developments and future perspectives

“…35 We would also like to refer to the recently published review article from Žnidaršič-Plazl, which gives a detailed overview of current examples of the implementation of microfluidic devices in biocatalytic process development. 36 Worth to mention is also the recently published special issues devoted to microreactors in biotechnology. [37][38][39][40][41][42] Additionally, a very recent review article was published by Hughes dealing with applications of flow chemistry in the pharmaceutical industry focusing in the patent literature, 43 whereas Lee et al emphasized on the translation of the pharmaceutical manufacturing from batch to flow, 44 and Baumann et al concentrate on the perspectives of continuous flow chemistry in the pharmaceutical industry.…”

The Hitchhiker's guide to biocatalysis: recent advances in the use of enzymes in organic synthesis

“…251 Another important technological development is the use of ow chemistry and microuidics. [252][253][254][255] This will facilitate the design of biocatalytic cascade reactions as these can easily be performed in series in a ow reactor. Moreover, the protective and low shear environment of micro-reactors will mean that less effort will be required for increasing the robustness of the enzymes.…”

Development of Novel Bioreactor Control Systems Based on Smart Sensors and Actuators

“…Parallel miniature bioreactors with small working volumes (also called microbioreactor systems) are an important alternative to the traditional batch cultivation apparatuses for use in bioprocess development and scale-up/scale-down investigation. Many important studies offer a detailed discussion of this topic, and many commercialized products (e.g., DASGIP from Eppendorf, AMBR from Sartorius Stedim Biotech) are also available in the market (Faust et al, 2014;Hemmerich et al, 2018a;Bjork and Joensson, 2019;Sandner et al, 2019;Znidarsic-Plazl, 2019). Process monitoring and control of miniature bioreactors are more complicated than single-bioreactor control, but investigations have shown encouraging results.…”