title: Hydration of acrylonitrile to produce acrylamide using biocatalyst in a membrane dispersion microreactor.
abstract: In this work, a membrane dispersion microreactor was utilized for the hydration of acrylonitrile to produce acrylamide. Through observation using a microscopy, it was found that the acrylonitrile was dispersed into the continuous phase (the aqueous phase contains nitrile hydratase (NHase)) as droplets with a diameter ranged from 25 to 35 μm, hence the mass transfer specific surface area was significantly increased, and the concentration of acrylamide reached 52.5 wt% within 50 min. By contrast, in stirred tanks, the concentration of acrylamide only got 39.5 wt% within 245 min. Moreover, only a few amounts of acrylonitrile were accumulated in this microreactor system. Through optimizing the flow rate, the concentration of acrylamide reached 45.8 wt% within 35 min, the short reaction time greatly weakened the inhibition of acrylonitrile and acrylamide on the enzyme activity, which is suitable for prolonging the life of free cell.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors: Jiahui
authors: J
authors: Li
authors: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors: Jie
authors: J
authors: Chen
authors: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. Electronic address: wangyujun@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
authors: Yujun
authors: Y
authors: Wang
authors: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors: Guangsheng
authors: G
authors: Luo
authors: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors: Huimin
authors: H
authors: Yu
mesh_terms: D020106:Acrylamide / Q000378:metabolism*; D000181:Acrylonitrile / Q000378:metabolism*; D055162:Biocatalysis; D019149:Bioreactors / Q000382:microbiology; D006836:Hydro-Lyases / Q000378:metabolism; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D012212:Rheology; D012240:Rhodococcus / Q000201:enzymology; D013696:Temperature; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D014867:Water; D020106:Acrylamide; D006836:Hydro-Lyases; C048831:nitrile hydratase; D000181:Acrylonitrile
keywords: Acrylamide; Acrylonitrile; Bioconversion; Microreactor