Chemical Engineering March 2014 - 15

(Continued from p. 15)
ChementatoR
Story Name
(Continued from p. 15)
Chemicals from birch bark
Sawmills and pulp mills in Finland generate large quantities
of birch bark, which is currently burned for making heat and
electricity. But half of the bark (by weight) consists of betulin
and fatty acids of suberin - compounds that could replace
pine oil and resin for making products, such as fine chemicals,
glues and paints. researchers from VTT Technical research
Center of Finland (espoo; www.vtt.fi), in cooperation
with Savonlinnan yrityspalvelut oy (Savonlinna, Finland)
and local companies, are assessing the production potential
of such compounds with the aim to creat bark-based
products. ❏
A new spin on enzymatic reactions
A
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new process-intensification technology to accelerate
the rate of enzymatic reactions has been developed
by researchers from the Dept. of Chemical Engineering,
University of Bath (U.K.; www.bath.ac.uk). The
so-called spinning cloth disc reactor (SCDR) is based
on, but extends the principles of, the conventional
spinning disc reactor (SDR). The SCDR also uses centrifugal
forces to allow the spread of a thin film across
a spinning horizontal disc. However, this disc has a
cloth with immobilized enzyme resting on top of it.
The SCDR therefore produces a flow of thin film both
on top of, as well as through the enzyme-immobilized
cloth, providing a large interfacial surface area for the
reaction, explains Emma Emanuelsson, who co-developed
the SCDR with colleague Darrell Patterson (both
lecturers at the university).
The cloth not only serves as the support for the
enzyme, but has the additional benefit of increasing
the residence time per pass on the disc compared to
SDRs. This higher contact time with the enzymes, as
well as the enhanced mixing and mass transfer in
the thin film, improves the reaction time, rate and
yield compared to a conventional stirred-tank reactor
(STR), says Patterson. The improvements were
observed using the hydrolysis of tributyrin as a test
reaction, with a lipase enzyme immobilized on a
wool cloth.
Under comparable reaction conditions, the SCDR
proceeded at a higher rate than in the STR, giving a
higher conversion over the entire hydrolysis process
at all the investigated concentrations. For example,
for a 20 g/L solution of tributyrin, a 65% conversion
was achieved after 240 min in the SCDR, compared
to a 52% conversion in the STR. The immobilized enzyme
was also found to show excellent stability, retaining
80% of its original activity after 15 consecutive
runs, say Emanuelsson.
As is the case with conventional SDRs (and microreactors),
the technology is most suited to smallscale
reactions, such as the synthesis of high-value
products, says Patterson. For commercial production,
the reactors would be numbered up rather than
scaled up, he says.
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CHeMICAL enGIneerInG www.CHe.CoM MArCH 2014 15
(Continues on p. 19)
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Chemical Engineering March 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering March 2014
