Production of citronellyl acetate in a fed-batch system using immobilized lipase. Scientific note

Several reports exist in the literature citing the decrease in conversion rates of organic-phase catalytic synthesis reactions when acetic acid is present as a reaction component. This inhibition is thought to result from damage to either the hydration layer-protein interaction or the overall enzyme structure. In this work, the inhibitory effect of acetic acid on lipase enzyme activity was ameliorated by conducting syntheses under acetic acid-limiting conditions in a fed-batch system, resulting in higher product yields. Periodic additions of acetic acid at levels of 40 mM or less gave maximum yields of 65% conversion for the reaction of citronellol and acetic acid to form citronellyl acetate. The enzyme used was a fungal lipase from Mucor miehei, and was immobilized on macroporous synthetic resin (a Novo lipozyme Novo Nordisk, Denmark). These results represent a fourfold improvement over batch runs reported in the literature for direct esterification of terpene alcohol with acetic acid using lipozyme as a catalytic agent.