The production of chiral amines through asymmetric synthesis using ω-transaminase has the potential for high yields in an efficient single-step process. To date, however, it is unclear whether the biocatalytic strategy is economically viable and environmentally friendly. This study carried out an environmental techno-economic assessment (ETEA) to understand the main drivers of the manufacturing costs and environmental impacts. The chiral amine products under study are (R)- or (S)-α-methyl benzylamine (MBA) and sitagliptin. Three biocatalytic production pathways are assessed, which are Case 1 transaminase catalyzed synthesis of chiral amines driven by membrane extraction for ISPR; Case 2 transaminase catalyzed synthesis of chiral amines with ISPR using an ion-exchange resin; Case 3 asymmetric synthesis of chiral amines with engineered transaminase; These processes are benchmarked to Case 4 chiral amines production process with ruthenium-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation. The results yield an MBA manufacturing cost of the integrated process with membrane extraction of €17.8/mol, which is lower than the process using an ion-exchange resin (€23.4/mol). The sitagliptin manufacturing cost of the membrane integrated process is estimated at €30.9/mol, which is €1.6/mol and €4.6/mol less than the processes with engineered transaminase, and the ruthenium-catalyzed process, respectively. Case 1 has higher impacts than Case 2 for most environmental categories for MBA production. Case 4 has the highest environmental impacts of the 3 cases for sitagliptin production. Case 1 and 3 have similar environmental impacts due to the same process flows. For MBA production of Case 1, the synthesis of the chiral amines in the reactor and purification in the substrate ketone extractor and the product extractor have the biggest attributions in the 18 environmental categories. Due to the big amount of 8-fold excess of amine donor IPA, amine donor for chiral amines synthesis has dominant impacts for most categories as well.

Environmental techno-economic assessment of biocatalytic chiral amines’ production processes

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