On August 1, Jakub Franciszek Kornecki started his position at CASCAT in the ITN -INTERfaces project. We wish him good luck and look forward to spending time together exploring new approaches and developing processes.
ITN-INTERfaces
Heterogeneous biocatalysis reaction cascades training network – The assembly of biocatalysts to reaction sequences allows avoiding steps for isolation and purification of intermediates and thus a significant improvement of the environmental footprint of catalytic processes. The main goal of INTERfaces is the extension of this concept towards multi-step biocatalytic reactions in immobilized form. These “Heterogeneous Biocatalytic Reaction Cascades” will greatly facilitate re-use of the catalysts and further simplify downstream-processing.
INTERfaces combines material science and protein engineering to design tailored enzymes and (bio-based) materials that will complement each other to obtain optimized heterogeneous biocatalysts. These tools will be applied to solve synthetic challenges in the use of two biobased monomers as starting materials to synthesize products for application fields like antioxidants and biopolymers.
Process optimization and up-scale in industry will reveal key factors for synthetic utilization of the biocatalysts. INTERfaces emphasizes particularly the engineering of the designed cascades in solid phase. This includes the design of reactors, use of computational modeling tools, application of the right operational modes, and reaction medium needed for desired space-time-yields and product titers. Commercial relevant processes will be up-scaled together with industry for technical implementation.
Innovative Training Network – European Industrial Doctorates
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 860414.