Recently, a new method of the fatty acid ester production making use of Novozym 435 as a catalyst in a highly viscous solvent free of charge environment was developed and tested on pilot scale2. In spite of of very good process characteristics there is still room for optimization of the operation parameters and procedure control analytics. 1 promising improvement is the implementation of FTIR based online analytics due to its robustness, cost efficiency and rapidity3. To confirm the applicability of FTIR technique to the chosen reaction system, the synthesis of myristyl myristate was monitored by ReactIR 45m equipped with an external AgX fiber conduit diamond ATR probe in the range of 650 – 1950 cm-1. A chemometric model was built with iC Quant software by using the correlation among the conversion determined by titration and the spectra recorded at various time points. The obtained model was cross-validated and successfully applied for the prediction of the reaction courses for independent batches4. This method can be applied for the stirred tank reactor as properly as for the bubble column. The extension to other reaction systems is currently under investigation. This function was funded in component by the BMBF in the Cluster “Biocatalysis2021″. Literature: 1 O. Thum, Tens. Surf. Det., 41, 2004, No. 6, p. 287-290
2 o. Thum, L. Hilterhaus, A. Liese, DE102008004726.
three G. Puxty et al., Chem. Eng. Sci., 2008, DOI: 10.1016/j.ces.2008.01.020.
four Müller JJ et al., article in preparation Prof. Dr. Andreas Liese (40) studied chemistry at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of Bonn, Germany and carried out his doctoral research at the Research Center Jülich, Germany, in close collaboration with DSM Research, Netherlands, receiving his PhD degree in 1998 from the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of Bonn. From 1998 to 2003 Liese was Assistant Professor at the University of Bonn and Head of the Enzyme Group inside the Institute of Biotechnology II (Prof. Dr. C. Wandrey), Investigation Center Jülich. In the course of a sabbatical in 2000 at Pfizer Global Research &amp Development, San Diego, USA, he initiated a R&ampD group on biocatalysis. From 2003 to 2004 he worked as Associate Professor at the University of Munster, receiving a full professorship for Technical Biocatalysis 2004 at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) as the Director of the Institute of Technical Biocatalysis, which he continues to expand. In 2003 Prof Liese received the Award of Up-and-Coming Teacher in Higher Education in the field of biotechnology (DECHEMA, Germany). He is an elected member of the steering committee “Biotechnology” of the DECHEMA e.V. and of the steering committee of the Germany Catalysis Society. His three books (“Industrial Biotransformations” , “Biological Principles Applied to Technical Asymmetric Catalysis” and “Biocatalysis for the Pharmaceutical Business”) which he authored deal with processes of white biotechnology. Prof. Liese’s special analysis interests are bioprocess engineering, enzyme technologies and asymmetric biochemical synthesis. Jakob Müller studied procedure engineering with a significant in biotechnology at the Hamburg University of Technologies. As a component of this study he interned for six months at Evonik Goldschmidt in Essen in the biotechnology study division. In 2008, he joined the study team of Prof. Dr. Andreas Liese as a PhD at the institute of Technical Biocatalysis at Hamburg University of Technologies. His work offers with the enzymatic production of cosmetic components in a new reactor concept. The main focus lies on the scale up of the method and the establishment of on the internet analytics.