L-Alanine
DMC Biotechnologies, Inc. (DMC; Boulder, Colo.; www.dmcbio.com) has successfully demonstrated full commercial scale (85 m3) fermentation for its first product, the amino acid L-alanine. The scaleup results identically tracked the performance at bench and pilot scales, further validating the predictability and scalability of DMC’s Dynamic Metabolic Control technology, the company says. Commercial performance metrics were demonstrated, meaning that no further strain improvements are required to achieve the target selling price.
This demonstration of process robustness and predictability across scale of production — from high-throughput screening to full commercial scale — has never been demonstrated in the field and represents a major advancement for DMC. This core technology enablement will also be beneficial for DMC’s pipeline of products that will be scaled and commercialized next.
The scale-up process was conducted at the Leuna facility of EW Biotech GmbH (Leuna, Germany; www.ew-biotech.com).
UF membrane
Toray Industries, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan; www.toray.com) has developed a new polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) ultrafiltration (UF) membrane that has an “exceptional” virus removal rate, as well as a high water permeability, making it suitable for water purification. The company is accelerating application testing, with the aim to commercialize the technology.
Toray improved its PVDF UF-membrane technology to enhance pathogenic virus removal and water permeability without reducing safety or increasing costs.
In developing the improved PVDF UF-membrane, the challenge was to reduce pore diameters to remove viruses, without the resulting decrease in water permeability. Toray used phase-separation control technology to create a uniformly dense structure. By laminating layers that have homogeneous pore-size distribution, Toray created a uniform dense structure without coarse voids (exceeding 100 nm) through which viruses can pass. This uniform dense structure made it possible to create a thinner dense structure than conventional UF membrane, and showed 99.99% removal of the Essherichia coli phage MS2, which has a diameter of around 27 nm.
Because the dense structure increases resistance and impedes water flow, the company used a proprietary hollow-fiber membrane process technology to create a thin, uniformly dense structure. Excellent virus removal and water permeability was achieved by increasing the porosity in the bulk of the membrane, except for the uniform dense structure. This led to more water channels and boosted the overall membrane permeability.
Graphene plates
Later this month, Applied Graphene Materials UK Ltd (AGM; Redcar, Cleveland, U.K.; www.appliedgraphenematerials.com) will be presenting its “breakthrough” technology that enables easy graphene dispersion in water-based epoxy coatings, while delivering improved corrosion protection, at the Corrosion 21 Conference & Expo on April 28th (a virtual event; www.nacecorrosion.org). The technology is said to represent a major milestone in the development of performance-enhancing graphene technologies for more sustainable coatings manufacturers.
AGM has previously demonstrated significant uplifts in anticorrosion performance in solvent-based coatings through the use of its Genable graphene-nanoplatelet dispersion technology. However, water-based coating development remains a key focus for industry formulators looking to improve the safety and environmental impacts of their products.
To date, dispersion of graphene in water-based systems has been problematic, causing coating instability or requiring large amounts of surfactant. AGM’s technology enables easy dispersion of graphene in water-based epoxy coatings, while delivering improved corrosion protection — the research is said to represent an important development in raising waterborne coating anti-corrosion performance in industry applications.
Sulfonamides
Sulfonamides are used in many drugs, including antibiotics and Viagra, as well as in agrochemicals and dyes. While to date it has been necessary to use corrosive chemicals, high temperatures and expensive metal catalysts to produce sulfonamides, a new electrochemical method — developed by a research team at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU; Germany; www.uni-mainz.de) — requires only cheaper starting materials, electrical current and relatively safe solvents. The researchers recently reported their findings in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
“The conventional procedure requires three reaction stages, with each stage driving up manufacturing costs by a factor of two to five. With the new method, just one reaction stage is needed. That makes it readily scalable and it can thus be applied on a technical scale,” says professor Siegfried Waldvogel, head of the research team.
The starting materials for the new reaction are amines, aromatics and SO2, which is a waste product of many industrial processes. In effect, the new method makes it possible to convert this unwanted material into valuable products. The amines react with the SO2 in solution, producing amidosulfinate as an intermediate product. This makes oxygen and sulfur available to react with the aromatic molecules that have already been oxidized using an electrical current. To prevent oxygen from bonding during this process, a suitable solvent was selected — “that is the really clever bit,” Waldvogel points out. The solvent forms strong hydrogen bonds with the oxygen atoms, thereby rendering them inactive — and clearing the way for the formation of the desired S–C bonds. After the reaction, the solvent can be redistilled and used again.
SnS solar cell
Current thin-film solar cells often use cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium selenide to induce the photovoltaic effect. However, these materials contain rare and toxic elements. To avoid these elements, researchers from Tohoku University (Japan; www.tohoku.ac.jp) have created a tin monosulfide (SnS) solar cell that boasts attractive performance levels. Both Sn and S are abundant, easy to refine and non-toxic. The prototype is described in the February issue of Solar RRL.