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Updated: Jun 24, 2025

Development of Heterogeneous Enantioselective Catalysts using Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks MOFs
Published on: January 17, 2020
Modularization of Immobilized Multienzyme Cascades for Continuous-Flow Enantioselective C-H Amination
Weixi Kong1, Chen Huang1, Liya Zhou1
1School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Hebei University of Technology, No. 8 Guangrong Road, Hongqiao District, 300130, Tianjin, China.
Abstract:
Multienzyme cascades (MECs) have gained much attention in synthetic chemistry but remain far from being a reliable synthetic tool. Here we report a four-enzyme cascade comprising a cofactor-independent and a cofactor self-sustaining bienzymatic modules for the enantioselective benzylic C-H amination of arylalkanes, a challenging transformation from bulk chemicals to high value-added chiral amines. The two modules were subsequently optimized by enzyme co-immobilization with microenvironmental tuning, and finally integrated in a gas-liquid segmented flow system, resulting in simultaneous improvements in enzyme performance, mass transfer, system compatibility, and productivity. The flow system enabled continuous C-H amination of arylalkanes (up to 100 mM) utilizing the sole cofactor NADH (0.5 mM) in >90 % conversion, achieving a high space-time yield (STY) of 3.6 g ⋅ L-1 ⋅ h-1, which is a 90-fold increase over the highest value previously reported.
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