“…Most of the bioconversions of nitriles have been carried out using free cells and little information is available on the use of immobilized microbes for transformation of nitriles (Dias et al, 2000b ;Takagi et al, 1994 ;Nawaz et al, 1993 ). Among the various methods available for immobilization of cells (Chibata, 1978 ), yeasts have been immobilized by entrapment in alginate, κ-carageenan and citric pectin (Dias et al, 2000b ). Alginate immobilized cells of Candida guilliermondii UMFG-Y65, degraded acetonitrile more efficiently than κ-carrageenan or citric pectin immobilized cells (Dias et al, 2000b ).Since calcium alginate beads are unstable in phosphate buffer (commonly used buffer in reactions comprising bioconversion of nitriles), barium chloride has been employed for cross-linking of alginate to provide better stability to the resultant beads during biotransformation reaction (Dias et al, 2001a ).…”