Chemical and Two-Step Biocatalytic 7-ACA Process

The 7-ACA produced is purified and isolated by crystallization at the isoelectric point. Of course, the quality of the 7-ACA produced by the biocatalytic synthesis has to be comparable to the chemical product with approximately 95% purity. Therefore the occurrence of byproducts, such as desacetyl-7-ACA, desacetoxy-7-ACA, 7-ACA-sulfoxide, glutaryl-7-ACA or a-ketoadipyl-7-ACA generated during the process or depending on the quality of the starting material, has to be watched very critically during the process development. 

Isolation of Ceph C salt necessary Equimolar amounts of chemicals used 

Toxic chemicals used (N,N-dimethylaniline) Hazardous chemicals used (CH3)3SiCl, PC15  

CH2C12 as solvent, avoidance of moisture (recycling and waste incineration) 

Expensive exhaust gas cleaning system (due to methylene chloride) 

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