Dissolving Carbon Dioxide in High Viscous Substrates to Accelerate Biocatalytic Reactions

Solvent free biotransformation of polyglycerol-3 and lauric acid yields polyglycerol-3-laurate and water. This conversion can be catalyzed by Novozym 435. However, the performance is limited by the viscosity of polyglycerol as well as of polyglycerol-3-laurate. A decrease of viscosity by increasing reaction temperature is only possible in a certain temperature range because of the limited stability of the applied enzyme. By dissolving high dense carbon dioxide into the reaction system the viscosity could be reduced, keeping the temperature at an acceptable level at the same time. Thus the reaction rate was increased by a factor of 4 while working at a pressure of 280 bar and 60 degrees C. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2011; 108: 2765-2769. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.