Extractive Enzymatic Hydrolysis Of Penicillin G Into 6-APA In Cloud Point System

6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-APA) is a key intermediate for production of semi-syntheticβ-lactam antibiotics. It is produced industrially at a scale of 10,000 ton/year. Enzymatic hydrolysis of Penicillin G in to 6-APA is the main route for industrial production. The industrial process is that penicillin acylase catalyzes hydrolysis of Pen G to produce 6-APA under pH control. But this process is not sustainable since it consumes an alkali (ammonia), an acid (sulfuric acid) and generates a waste containing ammonium sulfate. To overcome this shortage, extractive biocatalysis in aqueous-organic solvent biphasic systems has been applied in hydrolysis of Pen G. However, the biphasic system is limited at a relatively high pH. Even more unluckily, the stability and activity of penicillin acylase decrease abruptly at pH below 5. The strategy to solve this problem is enzyme immobilization or improving enzyme stability in organic solvent by molecular biology process or developing new extraction system.When an aqueous micelle solution of a nonionic surfactant is at a temperature above its cloud point or in the presence of certain additives, phase separation occurs to form a surfactant dilute phase and a surfactant-rich phase or coacervate phase. Such a system is called a cloud point system. It has been successfully exploited for a microbial transformation. Based on the above results, we investigate the new technology for enzymatic hydrolysis of penicillin G to 6-aminopenicillanic acid in present work.