Nanoparticle‐Mediated Enzyme Immobilization on Cellulose Fibers: Reusable Biocatalytic Systems for Cascade Reactions

Abstract

Enzymatic biocatalysis has the potential to enable greener and more efficient synthesis routes for the chemical industry. However, enzymes are hard to remove and recover from the reaction solution due to the homogeneous nature of biocatalysis. Hence, enzymes are often limited to single‐use applications. This work shows the immobilization of enzymes based on nanoparticle‐mediated robust physisorption on natural cellulose fibers. The resulting hybrid material is able to perform heterogeneous biocatalysis. The catalytic activity and the multifold reusability of immobilized enzyme are exemplarily investigated for the enzyme laccase. The kinetic parameters of immobilized laccase are determined and compared to the ones of free laccase. Furthermore, relative activities are evaluated in dependence of pH and temperature, and compared to the ones of free enzyme. The heterogeneous biocatalyst is easy to handle and can be quickly and completely removed from the reaction solution due to its macroscopic nature. The potential of multifold reusability of the catalyst is shown for 20 cycles with remaining activities of 45% after 10 and 24% after 20 reaction cycles. The approach may allow for sophisticated enzymatic cascade reaction systems in a simple flow‐through device as exemplarily shown for the immobilized enzymes glucose oxidase and horseradish peroxidase.

Enzyme immobilization inside the porous wood structure: a natural scaffold for continuous-flow biocatalysis

“…The adsorption efficiency is consistent with both our previous work on the immobilization of laccase on cellulose bers and other studies investigating the immobilization of laccase by adsorption. 44,49,50 The amount of immobilized enzymes (0.56 mg g À1 ) is lower than reported in literature. This is most likely due to the lower specic surface area of wood, compared to nano-sized or nanoporous materials, resulting in a lower accessible surface area per gram sample.…”

“…Enzyme immobilization on wood was achieved by gold nanoparticle mediated adsorption, an approach that we developed and applied on cellulose bers in previous studies. 44,45 It is based on a two-step impregnation of wood with aqueous reaction solutions. The approach is easy, versatile, and requires no pre-modication of the enzyme or arduous cleaning or purication steps.…”

Congo Red Decolorization Using Textile Filters and Laccase-Based Nanocomposites in Continuous Flow Bioreactors

“…Biofilters have been considered as an attractive alternative to increase the contact time for a robust continuous operation while maintaining the capital costs at a relatively low level [ 35 ]. To enable this technology, immobilized enzymes have been incorporated into fabrics or fibers by physical entrapment or covalent conjugation [ 26 , 42 ]. Further improvement of the remediation process has been achieved by conducting immobilization on nanostructured materials prior to their entrapment into the filter material [ 43 ].…”

“…Further improvement of the remediation process has been achieved by conducting immobilization on nanostructured materials prior to their entrapment into the filter material [ 43 ]. In this regard, some of the immobilization supports that have been explored include gold nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles, silica nanoparticles, and graphene [ 42 , 44 , 45 ]. Despite the progress made to develop more reliable processes based on biofilters equipped with enzyme-based nanocomposites, a detailed understanding of the interplay of parameters for an optimized operation is still elusive.…”

Luffa as a lignocellulosic material for fabrication of a new and green catalyst in promoting of coumarin and bis(indolyl)methane derivatives

“…One of the widespread applications of these materials is their use in the production of biofuels (10)(11)(12). Another application of lignocellulosic materials is using them as support for yeast and enzyme immobilization (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). In this application, the support materials must have the individual properties such as the physical resistance, hydrophilicity, ease of derivatization, resistance to biological degradation, a low cost of acquisition and high interaction between the enzyme-support per unit of weight.…”