uhde® enzymatic esterification – sustainable ester production with low-temperature biocatalysis

With uhde^® enzymatic esterification, you can significantly bring down energy and resource consumption, increase product quality, and broaden your product portfolio.

thyssenkrupp Uhde has achieved a breakthrough in the production of esters for use e.g. in food, personal care and industrial applications: a competitive esterification process that uses enzymes as the catalyst. This means a huge step forward in terms of environmental friendliness. Chemical catalysts such as inorganic acids or metal-based catalysts are replaced with enzymes which perform at significantly lower operating temperatures. Together with Novonesis, our partner in enzymatic technology, we developed a loop process and reactor design that gives your business economic competitiveness and ecologic advantages at the same time. Based on uhde^® modularization know-how, we designed it as an easy-to-install solution – for new builds, but also as add-on package for your existing plant.

The uhde^® enzymatic esterification – leading technology for a competitive edge

Our whole process is optimized for short reaction times resulting in:

• Competitive cost-in-use of the enzyme (cost of enzyme per ton of produced product)
  

• Higher annual production
  

• Higher product quality due to short and low temperature exposure of the product 

How do we achieve that? Thanks to the proprietary equipment design, the batch inventory can be circulated through the enzyme catalyst bed up to 30 times per hour at a low pressure drop and shear. Furthermore, the process achieves very low residual water content in the product down to 100 ppm. Together, these groundbreaking features make enzymatic esterification finally competitive with conventional esterification and allow a commercialization on broad scale.

Get started with our add-on retrofit package

The commercialization of our technology is in full swing, a pilot plant is in operation and we are ready to offer our solution for your semi-industrial and industrial plants.

To make the transition towards enzymatic esterification as easy as possible, we offer our proprietary process and reactor design also as an add-on package skid to existing facilities. Our design allows you to run both conventional and enzymatic esterification in the same plant, and to do a stepwise transition. This approach keeps investment costs and risk low, while opening the door to enter the growing markets for sustainable products in a very short timeframe.