Development of Biocatalytic Processes in Japan and Germany: From Research Synergies to Industrial Applications

摘要

During the 150 years of relations between Japan and Germany (the anniversary of which was celebrated in 2011), a strong interaction of their scientific communities active in the fields of biocatalysis also emerged. Besides the fascination for biocatalysis as a scientific field, this strong relationship has also been heavily driven by the economic impact of biocatalysis for the chemical industries in both countries, recognizing this scientific discipline as a valuable industrial tool for the production of chemicals for many decades. As will be described in more detail below, biocatalysis was originally applied in the food industry and at the beginning found its way into the chemicals industry by means of microbial processes. The integration of reaction engineering know-how already available in the chemicals industry for other chemical processes then led to the development of a range of industrial manufacturing methods based on the use of isolated enzymes (in free or immobilized form). The tremendous progress of molecular biology enabled protein engineering ("enzyme engineering") and the development of tailor-made enzymes and whole cells highly suited for chemical processes. This stage of technological development also led to the development of a broad range of processes that then gave high conversion, optical purity, and space-time yield. Often, such processes even turned out to be superior to the alternative organic synthetic processes. The development of such technologies, their state of the art, and their impact on the chemical industry will be discussed below. This will be done from the perspective of selected developments in Japan and Germany, which represent landmarks in the (industrial) history of white biotechnology and biocatalysis.