One novel microbial esterase WDEst9 from Dactylosporangium aurantiacum subsp. Hamdenensis NRRL 18085 was functionally characterized and the results demonstrated that the enantio-preference of WDEst9 was oppo-site to that of three other microbial esterases(BSE01701, PHE14 and Bae02030) in the kinetic resolution of racemic methyl lactate. We further investigated the potential of esterase WDEst9 in the kinetic resolution of both (±)-methyl 2-chloropropionate and (±)-ethyl 2-chloropropionate. The enantio-preference of WDEst9 was also interestingly op-posite to that of esterases EST12-7 and EstC10, and generated (S)-methyl 2-chloropropionate and (S)-ethyl 2-chloropropionate with high enantiomeric excess(both e.e. >98%) and high yield after many iterations of process optimization. Through genome mining, microbial esterase WDEst9 was characterized to be a novel esterase which may provide valuable complementary enantio-selectivity and possesses very good potential in the kinetic resolution of high value-added chiral chemicals.