Applied catastrophic phase inversion: a continuous non-centrifugal phase separation step in biphasic whole-cell biocatalysis.

Biphasic whole-cell biotransformations are known to be efficient alternatives to common chemical synthesis routes, especially for the production of, e.g. apolar enantiopure organic compounds.

Process boundaries of irreversible scCO2 -assisted phase separation in biphasic whole-cell biocatalysis.

The formation of stable emulsions in biphasic biotransformations catalyzed by microbial cells turned out to be a major hurdle for industrial implementation. Recently, a cost-effective and efficient downstream processing approach, using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2 ) for both irreversible emulsion destabilization (enabling complete phase separation within minutes of emulsion treatment) and product purification via extraction has been proposed by Brandenbusch et al. (2010).