Affiliations 

  • 1 Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Int J Biol Macromol, 2013 Apr;55:127-36.
PMID: 23305702 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2012.12.028

Abstract

The effects of organic solvents and their binary mixture in the glucose functionalization of bacterial poly-3-hydroxyalkanoates catalyzed by Lecitase™ Ultra were studied. Equal volume binary mixture of DMSO and chloroform with moderate polarity was more effective for the enzyme catalyzed synthesis of the carbohydrate polymer at ≈38.2 (±0.8)% reactant conversion as compared to the mono-phasic and other binary solvents studied. The apparent reaction rate constant as a function of medium water activity (aw) was observed to increase with increasing solvent polarity, with optimum aw of 0.2, 0.4 and 0.7 (±0.1) observed in hydrophilic DMSO, binary mixture DMSO:isooctane and hydrophobic isooctane, respectively. Molecular sieve loading between 13 to 15gL(-1) (±0.2) and reaction temperature between 40 to 50°C were found optimal. Functionalized PHA polymer showed potential characteristics and biodegradability.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.