Biochemical reaction engineering Chapter

Humphrey, A. E., Biochemical Reaction Engineering, Chapter 8 in Chemical Reaction Engineering Reviews, ACS Symposium Series 72, 1979. 

Previous chapters in this volume have been concerned with chemical reaction engineering and refer to reactions typical of those commonplace in the chemical process industries. There is another class of reactions, often not thought of as being widely employed in industrial processes, but which are finding increasing application, particularly in the production of fine chemicals. These are biochemical reactions, which are characterised by their use of enzymes or whole cells (mainly micro-organisms) to carry out specific conversions. The exploitation of such reactions by man is by no means a recent development—the fermentation of fruit juices to make alcohol and its subsequent oxidation to vinegar are both examples of biochemical reactions which have been used since antiquity. 

This book can be considered a third edition since there was an earlier book. Chemical Reactor Design, John Wiley Sons, 1987, that was followed by the first edition bearing the current title. The new title reflected an emphasis on optimization and particularly on scaleup, a topic rarely covered in detail in undergraduate or graduate education but of paramount importance to many practicing engineers. The treatment of biochemical and polymer reaction engineering is also more extensive than normal. There is a completely new chapter on meso-, micro-, and nanoreactors that includes such topics as axial diffusion in microreactors and self-assembly of nanostructures. 

The Gibbs free energy is a remarkable thermodynamic quantity. Because so many chemical reactions are carried out under conditions of near-constant pressure and temperature, chemists, biochemists, and engineers use the sign and magnitude of AG as exceptionally useful tools in the design of chemical and biochemical reactions. We will see examples of the usefulness of AG throughout the remainder of this chapter and this text... 

H Takada, T Yoshimura, T Ohshima, N Esaki, K Soda. J Biochem (Tokyo) 109 371, 1991. Chapter A4.4 Reaction engineering for enzjmie-catalyzed biotransformations. In K Drauz, H Waldmann, eds. Enzyme Catalysis in Organic Synthesis A Comprehensive Handbook. Weinheim VCH, 1995, pp 89-155. 

The following chapter shows the application of MS to metabolic flux analysis with different examples. Whereas some of them focus on flux quantification of only a single or a few selected reactions, others aim at the analysis of larger parts of the metabohsm. The overview given should illustrate the broad application potential of MS for metabohc flux analysis by examples from different fields of research. The majority of studies belongs to the medical field, whereas so far only few examples can be found in the area of biochemical engineering. 

Chapter 5, on Biochemical Engineering, has been completely rewritten in two sections by Dr R. L. Lovitt and Dr M. G. Jones with guidance from the previous author, Professor B. Atkinson. The earlier part deals with the nature of reaction processes controlled by micro-organisms and enzymes and is prefaced by background material on the relevant microbiology and biochemistry. In the latter part, the process engineering principles of biochemical reactors are discussed, and emphasis is given to those features which differentiate them from the chemical reactors described previously. 

In the first section of this book, the brief introduction about biochemical engineering is given in chapter 1. The second chapter deals with basics of enzyme reaction kinetics. The third chapter deals with an important aspect in enzyme bioprocess i.e. immobilization of enzyme and its kinetics. Chapter 4 is concerned about the industrial bioprocess involving starch and cellulose. 

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