Synthesis of Biorenewable Terpene Monomers Using Enzymatic Epoxidation under Heterogeneous Batch and Continuous Flow...

Area of Science:

• Green Chemistry
• Biocatalysis
• Polymer Science

Background:

• Enzymatic epoxidation offers a sustainable alternative to traditional methods.
• Lipase B from Candida antarctica immobilized on Novozym 435 is a robust biocatalyst.
• Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) serves as an environmentally benign oxidant.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and optimize a sustainable epoxidation protocol for biorenewable terpenes.
• To investigate the application of this protocol under both batch and continuous flow conditions.
• To demonstrate the catalyst's recyclability and the method's scalability.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing immobilized Lipase B (Novozym 435) as a biocatalyst.
• Employing hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as the oxidant for epoxidation reactions.
• Conducting experiments in both heterogeneous batch and continuous flow reactor setups.

Main Results:

• The Novozym 435 catalyst demonstrated high activity and recyclability over 10 cycles in batch mode.
• Continuous flow operation maintained catalyst productivity for over 30 hours.
• Gram quantities of various terpene epoxides were successfully produced.
• The protocol was successfully applied to post-functionalize biobased polymers with epoxy groups.

Conclusions:

• A practical, safe, and sustainable flow epoxidation method using H2O2 and Novozym 435 was established.
• This method enables efficient production of terpene epoxides and functionalization of biopolymers.
• The findings support the use of biocatalysis for greener chemical synthesis and polymer modification.