Catalytic methods biocatalytic synthesis

Perhaps less clear to a newcomer to a particular area of chemistry is when to use biocatalysis as a key step in a synthesis, and when it is better to use one of the alternative non-natural catalysts that may be available. Therefore we set out to extend the objective of Preparative Biotransformations, so as to cover the whole panoply of catalytic methods available to the synthetic chemist, incorporating biocatalytic procedures where appropriate. 

The use of enzymes as biocatalysts for the synthesis of water-soluble conducting polymers is simple, environmentally benign, and gives yields of over 90% due to the high efficiency of the enzyme catalyst. Since the use of an enzyme solution does not allow the recovery and reuse of the expensive enzyme, well-established strategies of enzyme immobilization onto solid supports have been applied to HRP [22-30]. A recent work reported an alternative method that allows the recycle and reuse of HRP in the biocatalytic synthesis of ICPs. The method is based on the use of a biphasic catalytic system in which the enzyme is encapsulated by simple solubilization into an IL. The main strategy consisted of encapsulating the HRP in room-temperature IPs insoluble in water, and the other components of the reaction... 

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