Catalyzed Reaction in an Ionic Liquid Solvent System

LIPASE-CATALYZED REACTION IN AN IONIC LIQUID SOLVENT SYSTEM 

We succeeded in showing that recycling of the enzyme was indeed possible in our IL solvent system, though the reaction rate gradually dropped with repetition of the reaction process. Since vinyl acetate was used as acyl donor, acetaldehyde was produced hy the hpase-catalyzed transesterification. It is well known that acetaldehyde acts as an inhibitor of enzymes because it forms a Schiff base with amino residue in the enzyme. However, due to the very volatile nature of acetaldehyde, it easily escapes from the reaction mixture and therefore has no inhibitory action on the lipase. However, this drop in reactivity was assumed to be caused by the inhibitory action of acetaldehyde oligomer which had accumulated in the [bmim][PFg] solvent system. In fact, it was confirmed that the reaction was inhibited by addition of acetaldehyde trimer. = 

One of the most important characteristics of IL is its wide temperature range for the liquid phase with no vapor pressure, so next we tested the lipase-catalyzed reaction under reduced pressure. It is known that usual methyl esters are not suitable for lipase-catalyzed transesterification as acyl donors because reverse reaction with produced methanol takes place. However, we can avoid such difficulty when the reaction is carried out under reduced pressure even if methyl esters are used as the acyl donor, because the produced methanol is removed immediately from the reaction mixture and thus the reaction equilibrium goes through to produce the desired product. To realize this idea, proper choice of the acyl donor ester was very important. The desired reaction was accomplished using methyl phenylth-ioacetate as acyl donor. Various methyl esters can also be used as acyl donor for these reactions methyl nonanoate was also recommended and efficient optical resolution was accomplished. Using our system, we demonstrated the completely recyclable use of lipase. The transesterification took place smoothly under reduced pressure at 10 Torr at 40°C when 0.5 equivalent of methyl phenylthioacetate was used as acyl donor, and we were able to obtain this compound in optically pure form. Five repetitions of this process showed no drop in the reaction rate (Fig. 4). Recently Kato reported nice additional examples of lipase-catalyzed reaction based on the same idea that CAL-B-catalyzed esterification or amidation of carboxylic acid was accomplished under reduced pressure conditions.  

Imidazolium PFg or BF4 salts were frequently used as solvent for the present lipase-catalyzed reaction. However, these salts are very expensive, and we should develop cheaper ILs. Imidazolium alkyl sulfates might be good candidates because various types of alkyl sulfates can be easily prepared. The imidazolium alkyl sulfate was prepared starting from the corresponding ammonium alkyl sulfate as follows ammonium alkyl sulfates ([NH4][RS04]) are easily prepared by the reaction of 

We recently prepared various types of differently fiuorinated alkyl sulfate ILs and discovered that the hydrophobicity was dependent on the content ratio of the fluorine on the alkyl sulfate anion and 2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5-octafiuoropentyl sulfate salts showed hydrophobic properties. Melting point and viscosity were also dependent on the fluorine contents of the anionic part, while conductivity was determined by the cationic part and not influenced by the fluorine contents. Efficient lipase-catalyzed transesterificafion was demonstrated using hydrophobic 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium 2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5-octafiuoropentyl sulfate ([bmim][C5E8]) as solvent (Eig. 6).  

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