Microinnova Engineering GmbH is once again a partner in a promising EU project. The Membranes And Catalysts Beyond Economic and Technological Hurdles (MACBETH) project is concerning itself with “a breakthrough technology for advanced downstream processing by combining catalytic synthesis with the corresponding separation units in a single highly efficient catalytic membrane reactor (CMR)”. Coordinated by Evonik Performance Materials GmbH (EPM), the project’s duration is from November 1st 2019 to April 31st 2024. One of this project’s main goals is to increase resource as well as energy efficiency by up to 70%. A safer and smaller production plant, thanks to the innovative reactor design, furthermore offers a significant competitive advantage by decreasing CAPEX and OPEX by up to 50% and 80%, respectively.
The case Microinnova Engineering GmbH is working on within the MACBETH project, is the BOC (Bio Catalytical Oil Cleavage) case. It “aims to establish a CMR-based system for the enzyme-catalysed selective hydrolysis of plant oil fatty acids in an aqueous-organic system followed by an integrated membrane separation to isolate selected fatty acids.” The plant will be tested by two project partners to ensure process robustness and long term-stability and a containerized set up of it is planned to make transportation between the two testing sites easier. This will also demonstrate the plant’s flexibility and adaptability of results to new areas of application.
This project H2020-EU.2.1.5.3. is funded by EU Horizon 2020 Grant Agreement No 869896.
Image Source: Enzymicals AG
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