Process design of a continuous biotransformation with in situ product removal by cloud point extraction

In this work, a continuous, heterogeneous extractive biocatalysis was realized with penicillin G hydrolysis as a model reaction. Therefore, commercially available structured packing CY from Sulzer were coated with enzyme‐containing gels and their catalytic activity was examined. Thereby, the potential of aqueous micellar two‐phase systems (ATPMS) as an extraction medium was evaluated. Triton X‐114 was used as model surfactant. It was found that the separation efficiency of the packing is not affected by the coating and ATPMS allows for a good separation yield. With these results, different process concepts for the continuous, heterogeneous extractive biocatalysis were compared. Overall, a countercurrent process with side inlet (YPAAside inlet = 78.1% ± 1.3%) has shown a great potential for a selective product separation and thus, higher yields in comparison to a monophasic batch operation (YPAAbatch,monophasic = 51.9% ± 0.6%) as well as a biphasic batch operation (YPAAbatch,biphasic = 67.6% ± 1.0%, wTriton X‐114 = 5%) were achieved. Transfer of a batch in situ product extraction to a continuous, heterogeneous process in extraction columns.