But Kulkarni cautions on chemical catalyst-based production process
With rising global demand, the need for sustainable manufacturing processes is now greater, more than ever, according to Indian startup Quantumzyme CEO Naveen Kulkarni, underlining that biology will drive the future of manufacturing.
But with conventional chemical catalyst-based industrial manufacturing have an adverse impact on the environment, he has pointed out.
The challenge today is not stepping up manufacturing but moving to sustainable manufacturing processes that use raw materials efficiently, eliminates waste, and avoids the use of toxic materials, Kulkarni said on 5 Oct 2020.
While many researchers, start-ups, and enterprises are making constant attempts towards sustainable manufacturing, Quantumzyme has been making waves recently with its technology for green chemistry and promoting enzyme-based manufacturing.
Unlike metal-based catalysts that rely on harsh, energy-intensive processing, Quantumzyme has developed pioneering biocatalysts that grow the activation rate by up to 150 times and are easily biodegradable.
The company has developed an in-house framework, named “QZyme Workbench™”, that enables in-silico or Computer-aided enzyme engineering, effectively reducing the turnaround time and raw materials required, while elevating the process efficiency.
The platform supports the entire process of development from identification to engineering and providing sequences that can be taken to the lab to perform experiments and scaled up for manufacturing.
It uses proprietary algorithms, necessary to carry out substitutions of appropriate amino-acid residues that are instrumental in performing the biocatalytic reaction.
According to a recent ACS Catalysis report, the QZyme workbench enabled detection of bottleneck residues which hindered the rate of reaction – and with minor mutations, a 200-fold increase in the production of end-product was observed with high stereo-specificity.
“As India steps up its manufacturing processes, it is imperative that we keep the well-being of our environment in mind,” stressed Kulkarni.
“With Quantumzyme, we envision a future free from chemical catalysts that are inherently cumbersome and release harmful byproducts. With enzyme-based biocatalysts, we will eliminate just that.”
He believes that biology not just helps with sustainability – but is a potential manufacturing platform for a trillion-dollar global market opportunity.
Kulkarni was felicitated with “Most Innovative Idea” by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with several other accolades from the likes of Economic Times, Government of Karnataka, among others.
A regular contributor to leading journals like Nature, ACS Bio catalysis, etc, Kulkarni served as the CEO of Biotech Startups, and before that, was Director at Philips Research and associated primarily with the healthcare and energy sector. #IT #technology #solutions #processing /fiinews.com
