The production processes of DSMPureActives hardly make use of solvents and
contain very few process steps compared to the chemical processes.
Abolishment of solvents
The most important improvement from
sustainability point of view is the abolishment of the use of aggressive
solvents. In the old process, these solvents were necessary during the
reaction and to purify the product after the reaction. In the new process,
enzymes are used to couple the side chain to the 6-APA or 7-ADCA molecule and
all this occurs without using solvents or aqueous media.
Less process steps
Another environmental improvement can be
assigned to the reduction in process steps. As a rule of thumb you can say
that every process step requires energy and other auxiliaries. The less steps
a process is built up of, the less the burden on the environment. Thanks to
the enzymatic process, the number of process steps can be drastically reduced.
For Cephalexin the number of steps has been reduced with more than 50%.
