Enzymes are Nature's sustainable catalysts and they function best in aqueous media. However, many organic compounds are sparingly soluble in water and biocatalysis in non-aqueous media can offer many benefits. Product recovery from low boiling organic solvents is easier, microbial contamination is suppressed. Moreover, certain reactions , such as esterification and amidation, are difficult to perform in aqueous media, owing to equilibrium limitations and competing hydrolytic side reactions, but can be readily conducted in organic solvents. However, the catalytic efficiencies of enzymes suspended in organic solvents are two orders of magnitude lower than in water. The first publication on biocatalysis in water-free ionic liquids (ILs) appeared in 2000 [1]. This was motivated by the possibility of replacing volatile organic solvents with non-volatile, non-inflammable ILs. However, ILs have significant solubility in water and first generation ILs exhibited acute toxicity to a variety of aquatic organisms and were poorly biodegradable. In contrats, second generation ILs, containing more biocompatible cations and anions and often derived from eco-friendly natural products, have recently emerged as interesting media for biotransformations [2]. Currently much attention is also being focused on the use of such biocompatible ILs and the related deep eutectic solvents (DES) as reaction media for enzymatic conversion of polysaccharides, in particular the use of lignocellulosic biomass as a renewable feedstock for biofuels and commodity chemicals [3}.<br/>[1] R. Madeira Lau, F. van Rantwijk, K. R. Seddon, R. A. Sheldon, Org. Lett. 2000, 2, 4189.<br/>[2] C. Chiappe, A. Marra, A. Mele, Top. Curr. Chem. 2010, 295, 177.<br/>[3] J. Long, X. Li, B. Guo, F. Wang, Y. Yu, L. Wang, Green Chem. 2012, 14, 1935

Biocatalysis and biomass conversion in alternative reaction media

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.