Collect. Czech. Chem. Commun. 1985, 50, 2122-2133
https://doi.org/10.1135/cccc19852122

Design of a continuous flow immobilized-cell reactor for biosynthetical production of L-aspartic acid

Jindřich Zahradníka, Marie Fialováa, Jan Škodab and Helena Škodovác

a Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 165 02 Prague 6-Suchdol
b Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 166 10 Prague 6
c Research Institute for Biofactors and Veterinary Pharmaceuticals, 254 49 Jilove near Prague

Abstract

An experimental study was carried out aimed at establishing a data base for an optimum design of a continuous flow fixed-bed reactor for biotransformation of ammonium fumarate to L-aspartic acid catalyzed by immobilized cells of the strain Escherichia alcalescens dispar group. The experimental program included studies of the effect of reactor geometry, catalytic particle size, and packed bed arrangement on reactor hydrodynamics and on the rate of substrate conversion. An expression for the effective reaction rate was derived including the effect of mass transfer and conditions of the safe conversion-data scale-up were defined. Suggestions for the design of a pilot plant reactor (100 t/year) were formulated and decisive design parameters of such reactor were estimated for several variants of problem formulation.