Biocatalysis, also referred to as enzymatic catalysis or biotransformation, is the use of enzymes to catalyze chemical reactions. The field for biocatalysis continues to grow as chemists strive towards more efficient and green chemistry processes, while reducing costs.
The pharmaceutical, chemical, petroleum, agricultural, polymer and electronics industries have reported applications of enzyme catalyzed syntheses. Industrial scale organic biotransformations include hydrolysis, oxidation, reduction, addition – elimination, halogenation and dehalogenation, and transesterification reactions.
Similarly to metal catalyzed reactions, ReactIR™in situ FTIR monitors the progress of biocatalytic conversions to determine reaction endpoints, understand reaction mechanisms, monitor the formation of intermediates, and perform reaction kinetics analysis, all in order to optimize reaction conditions and increase product yield and purity. Integrated with ReactIR™, synthesis workstations support enzyme screening, route scouting, process development and optimization, and process scale-up studies to ultimately improve product yield and quality.