The ratio of raw materials to products of fine chemicals is high, but the environmental pollution is not small; the biochemical route that can greatly reduce energy consumption, water consumption, and pollutant emissions has a low refinement rate. In an interview with a reporter from China Chemical Industry News, experts said that in order to reduce the scissors gap between biotechnology and the needs of the chemical industry, the future of biochemical industry should target deep processing and high value-added, and change the research and development thinking of excessive pursuit of yield. It's simpler and easier.

Product direction:

Complex structural chemicals

Someone predicts that the proportion of fine chemicals prepared by biological methods will increase to 60% by 2020, and the market potential will reach more than US$500 billion. Zheng Yuguo, a professor at Zhejiang University of Technology, said that fine chemicals often face problems such as lengthy reaction steps, low yield, continuous protection/deprotection and resolution reactions, multiple enrichments, and high optical purity requirements. Process substitution through biological methods can reduce side reactions such as decomposition, isomerization, and rearrangement to ******.

At present, researchers are focusing on using biological methods to prepare more fine chemicals with complex structures, large molecular weights, many chiral centers, and abundant active functional groups. For example, the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has studied the use of biological methods to prepare tissue engineering grade marine polysaccharide biomaterials and calcium alginate/chitosan calcium alginate-sodium alginate mixed soft tissue enhancement materials; use Saccharomyces cerevisiae engineering bacteria to prepare scented purple Threonol is used in fragrances and cosmetics, and the purity of the product is greater than 95%. Professor Huang He from Nanjing University of Technology introduced that they use biologically prepared rare sugars and other complex and refined chemicals, and the purity can reach the national standard food-grade requirements. Moreover, it has the advantages of low energy consumption in process control such as pressure and temperature.

Zhao Zongbao, a researcher at the Dalian Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that in addition to products with complex structures, the use of biological methods to prepare platform compounds such as furfural also has great potential in replacing fossil products.

Production processes:

Reduce environmental costs

Professor Yang Lirong from the Industrial Biocatalysis Engineering Laboratory of Zhejiang University took the pharmaceutical and chemical industry as an example to introduce the use of enzyme catalysts in statins, pristine drugs, D-pantoate lactone, chiral bio-pyrethrin and cilastatin sodium The biological enzymatic production process. Enzyme catalysis processes are mostly at room temperature and pressure with high conversion rates. The application of biocatalytic technology reduces energy consumption and water consumption by 10% to 80%, and environmental pollutant emissions are reduced by 20% to 90%. For example, chemistry in all organic solvents-enzymes The key technology for the efficient preparation of chiral pyrethroids is to replace or apply biological processing methods to chemical processing. While reducing production costs, it minimizes the environmental pollution that may occur during the production process. Through strain breeding and high-efficiency immobilization technology, the vitality, stability and enantioselectivity of the immobilized lipase can be significantly improved, and the problem of the lack of high-efficiency industrial biocatalysts suitable for organic solvent environments can be solved. This technology has built an industrial production line for the efficient preparation of chiral pyrethroids by the chemical-enzymatic method in all organic solvents in Changzhou Kangmei Chemical Co., Ltd. The production cost has been reduced by more than 100,000 yuan/ton, and the waste water generated in the production has also been reduced by more than 80% compared with the traditional method.

Industrialization docking:

The craft must be simple and easy to implement

At present, my country's biological preparation of fine chemicals is facing major challenges while facing opportunities. Zhao Zongbao said that in terms of marketization, the industrialization of pharmaceutical intermediates, amino acids, sugar compounds and other substances is relatively high, and the transformation of achievements in the chemical industry is still underdeveloped. R&D institutions are negligent in project approval. The companies that need to communicate have made many preparation technologies relatively mature and the mechanism exploration has become clearer, but few chemical companies are interested in them. The supply of biomass raw materials is not very stable. The scale-up of technical projects requires many technical adjustments and exploration links such as pilot trials, which poses certain risks; fine chemicals have high added value, but the demand is small, and the market audience is narrow. Once a few companies will When the market is saturated, it is difficult for other companies to compete and survive. All these have led to the lack of enthusiasm for fine chemicals in the biological route.

How to eliminate the psychological grievances of the enterprise? Huang He said that the engineering scale-up process should be run-in with the company, through repeated technical debugging, to ensure the production effect of the fermentation tank after scale-up. In addition, between the needs of the company and the laboratory design route, there must be Do docking and adjustment. The experimental stage often pursues high yield and high conversion rate, but in the course of enterprise operation, it is often more important to simplify the process and easy to master. Ultra-high yield is not the ultimate goal, which requires technicians to readjust the raw materials, temperature and pressure. .

Huang He believes that the downstream products are widely used, and the market response will be hotter. The DHA food additive prepared by their microbial fermentation method has been well known by many people. The product has high added value and mature technology. It is often used in milk powder and health products. In addition, their research on the biological method of preparing trehalose technology also has better downstream applications, and has attracted many companies to discuss cooperation.