Immobilized Enzymes: Methods and Applications

Immobilized enzymes are used in organic syntheses to fully exploit the technical and economical advantages of biocatalysts based on isolated enzymes. Immobilization enables the separation of the enzyme catalyst easily from the reaction mixture, and can lower the costs of enzymes dramatically. This is true for immobilized enzyme preparations that provide a well-balanced overall performance, based on reasonable immobilization yields, low mass transfer limitations, and high operational stability. There are many methods available for immobilization which span from binding on prefabricated carrier materials to incorporation into in situ prepared carriers. Operative binding forces vary between weak multiple adsorptive interactions and single attachments through strong covalent binding.Which of the methods is the most appropriate is usually a matter of the desired applications. It is therefore the intention of this paper to outline the common immobilization methods and reaction technologies to facilitate proper applications of immobilized enzymes.