SBIR Phase I: Enzyme Stabilization via Immobilization for Advanced Chemical Manufacturing

SBIR 第一阶段：通过固定化实现酶稳定，用于先进化学制造

• 批准号: 2320044
• 负责人: James Weltz
• 金额: $ 27.49万
• 依托单位: CASCADE BIOCATALYSTS INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-12-15 至 2024-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2320044&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Enzyme; Stabilization; via

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project enables environmentally sustainable, low-carbon, chemical manufacturing with long-lasting enzymes. The chemicals industry relies heavily on unsustainable petrochemical feedstocks as well as energy and materials inefficient processes. Nature renewably produces a diverse array of chemicals and materials, including lumber from air and sunlight and lifesaving therapeutics like penicillin. Biology creates molecules through the power of enzymes – nature’s catalysts. While some enzymes have been leveraged to produce chemicals, enzymes are typically too short lived and expensive to create scalable, cost-effective chemical manufacturing processes. This project will allow enzymes to gain more share of the $40 billion catalyst space by scaling a patent-pending approach to keep enzymes lasting longer, decreasing their costs significantly. This project will be commercialized as a high-gross margin, recurring revenue business, supporting industrial green chemistry. The first application will be the production of flavors and fragrance molecules, relatively high value molecules that are currently produced in unsustainable, polluting processes. Ultimately, this solution will extend to higher volume, lower value chemicals for larger reductions in environmental pollution. Furthermore, the innovation will contribute to the United States by on-shoring chemical manufacturing processes that left the US due to the high environmental costs.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will demonstrate the commercial feasibility and scalability of heterogeneous polymers to stabilize enzymes through engineered polymer-enzyme interactions. The Phase I research and development builds on the team’s prior work on enzyme stabilization in industrial chemical manufacturing and will develop ultrastable enzymes to reduce the cost of sustainable manufacturing of flavors and fragrances. While this technology has been demonstrated for several early customers at the laboratory scale, a particular focus of this project is the scale up of the manufacturing process. This manufacturing involves state-of-the-art controlled radical polymerization processes that have yet to be commercialized. Traditionally, approaches to sustainable chemical manufacturing struggle with scalability and unit costs, and therefore, this project aims to de-risk scale and cost earlier in commercialization. While this scale-up will be done earlier in commercialization, it is done in collaboration with existing customers to ensure the products at scale provide value to the companies producing fine chemicals.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）I阶段项目使环境可持续，低碳，化学制造具有长期酶。化学工业在很大程度上依赖不可持续的石化原料以及能量和材料效率低下的过程。大自然可以重新生产一系列的化学物质和材料，包括来自空气和阳光的木材以及救生疗法，例如青霉素。生物学通过酶的力量（自然的催化剂）创造分子。虽然某些酶已被利用来生产化学物质，但酶通常过于短暂且昂贵，无法创建可扩展的，具有成本效益的化学制造工艺。该项目将使酶通过缩放未申请专利的方法来使酶持续更长的时间，从而大大降低其成本，从而使酶在400亿美元的催化剂空间中获得更多份额。该项目将被商业化为高分利润，经常性收入业务，支持工业绿色化学。第一个应用将是生产口味和框架分子，这些分子相对较高的值分子目前是在不可持续的，污染过程中产生的。最终，该解决方案将扩展到较高的较高价值化学品，以减少环境污染。此外，这项创新将通过较高的环境成本而离开美国的开放式化学制造工艺为美国做出贡献。本小型企业创新研究（SBIR）I期项目将证明，通过工程的聚合物 - 烯酶相互作用来稳定异质性聚合物的商业可行性和可伸缩性。第一阶段的研究和开发是基于该团队在工业化学制造中稳定酶稳定的先前工作，并将开发超高的酶，以降低风味和框架可持续制造的成本。尽管已在实验室规模上为几个早期客户证明了这项技术，但该项目的一个特别重点是制造过程的规模。该制造涉及尚未商业化的最新控制的激进聚合过程。传统上，可持续化学制造与可伸缩性和单位成本进行斗争的方法，因此，该项目旨在在商业化方面脱离风险规模和成本。虽然该规模扩大将在商业化的早期进行，但它是与现有客户合作完成的，以确保对生产精细化学的公司提供价值。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用该基金会的知识分子的优点和更广泛的影响来审查标准，认为通过评估而被认为是宝贵的支持。