Towards a continuous flow environment for lipase-catalyzed reactions

Despite the technological knowledge available for thousands years about fermentation processes, interestingly only in the last two hundred years scientists have developed tools that allow chemists to use the natural power of biocatalysts in the laboratory. The present review has covered the literature from 1991 to 2012 with the most exciting examples of lipase-catalyzed reactions under continuous flow regime. Different types of reactors can be found and in most cases a greater improvement can be observed when working under such conditions compared to the traditional batch reactors.

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► Biocatalysis under continuous flow conditions.
► Lipase catalyzed hydrolysis, esterifications and interesterifications.
► Gain in productivity using packed bed reactors.
► Recyclability of immobilized lipases under continuous flow conditions.