Abstract
Ionic liquids (ILs), entirely composed of cations and anions, are liquid solvents at room temperature. They are interesting due to their low vapor pressure, high polarity and thermostability, and also for the possibility to fine-tune their physicochemical properties through modification of the chemical structures of their cations or anions. In recent years, ILs have been widely used in biotechnological fields involving whole-cell biotransformations of biodiesel or biomass, and organic compound synthesis with cells. Research studies in these fields have increased from the past decades and compared to the typical solvents, ILs are the most promising alternative solvents for cell biotransformations. However, there are increasing limitations and new challenges in whole-cell biotransformations with ILs. There is little understanding of the mechanisms of ILs’ interactions with cells, and much remains to be clarified. Further investigations are required to overcome the drawbacks of their applications and to broaden their application spectrum. This work mainly reviews the applications of ILs in whole-cell biotransformations, and the possible mechanisms of ILs in microbial cell biotransformation are proposed and discussed.
Highlights
Ionic liquids (ILs) are collectively known as organic salts, which consist of ions and are liquids at room temperature [1]
An example is that the synthesis of (S)-TMSBOL is successfully conducted with high yield and excellent product e.e. by means of the biocatalytic asymmetric reduction of TMSB using immobilized Candida parapsilosis CCTCC M203011 cells in water-immiscible IL-based biphasic systems (Figure 2b)
ILs have been widely used in biocatalysis due to their unique properties
Summary
Ionic liquids (ILs) are collectively known as organic salts, which consist of ions and are liquids at room temperature [1] They have attracted great interest as the high-tech reaction media of the future with distinct properties, such as negligible vapor pressure, low melting point, varying viscosities, larger electrochemical window and thermal stability [2,3,4,5]. (BMIM)(PF6) and (BMIM)((CF3SO2)2N) were usually used as pure solvents, and as co-solvents in biphasic systems, while (BMIM)(BF4) or (MMIM)(MeSO4) was a co-solvent in the aqueous phase [22] Many enzymatic reactions, such as lipase catalyzed reaction, transesterification, hydrolysis and condensation, and ammoniolysis reactions have successfully proceeded [23,24,25,26]. Possible mechanisms of ILs in microorganism cells are proposed
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