Projects - K (Kangni) Chen

Microreactors confer inimitable advantages for running chemical, microbial and enzymatic reactions. In this context, microreactors based on biphasic liquid systems, in particular oil-water emulsion droplets have gained a great interest. However, environmental and consumers concerns associated with the use of organic solvents, synthetic low-molecular weight surfactants and lipid impurities in reaction products encourage scientists/industry to develop alternative reaction media. Fully aqueous liquid biphasic systems, i.e. water-in-water (W/W) emulsion droplets are considered as green, inexpensive, and rather sustainable options for accomplishing a diversity of reactions. Comparable to oil-water emulsion-based media, W/W emulsions enable compartmentalization of reactants in discrete phases. The spatial distribution of reactants can be crucial when dealing with yield and the concentration of the end-products of the Maillard reaction (MR). In the current project, W/W emulsion and natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) will be used to develop miniaturized reactors to run and investigate the early stage of the MR, with the formation  of Amadori compounds and the advanced stages. Emulsions will consist of polyethylene glycol (8 kDa), Na2SO4, and NADES. The MR will take place between glucose and either hydrophobic or hydrophilic amino acids (to have control over the spatial distribution of the reactants) and the MR products will be identified, measured and fractionated. The project findings will allow to accomplish the MR by a green and scale-upable method, which includes miniaturized biphasic reaction media. The method would provide control over the compartmentalization of the reactants, intermediates as Amadori/Heyns compounds and end-products tuning the reaction pathway to generate specific compounds and also facilitate the recovery (pre-purification) of the MR products.