Industrial applications of immobilized enzymes—A review

The use of immobilized enzymes is now a routine process for the manufacture of many industrial products in the pharmaceutical, chemical and food industry. Some enzymes, such as lipases, are naturally robust and efficient, can be used for the production of many different molecules and have a wide range of industrial applications thanks to their broad selectivity. As an example, lipase from Candida antarctica (CalB) has been used by BASF to produce chiral compounds, such as the herbicide Dimethenamide-P, which was previously made chemically. The use of the immobilized enzyme has provided significant advantages over a chemical process, such as the possibility to use equimolar concentration of substrates, obtain…