Esterification of lauric acid with lauryl alcohol using cross-linked enzyme crystals: Solvent effect and kinetic study

In this paper, we report a comprehensive kinetic study on esterification of lauric acid with lauryl alcohol catalysed by commercial porcine pancreatic lipase (PPL) in the form of cross-linked enzyme crystals (CLEC) using glutaraldehyde as the cross linker. The stability of the CLEC was better than the immobilized enzyme for practical applications. Comparative studies using six different solvents having hydrophobicity (log p) values ranging from 0.70 to 3.50 revealed that the esterification reaction was favoured in hydrophobic solvents. The kinetics of the esterification reaction conformed with the so-called Ping-Pong-Bi-Bi mechanism with alcohol inhibition.