Ethanol acetylation by mycelium-bound carboxylesterase of Aspergillus oryzae: estimation of thermodynamic parameters and integral productivity

The results collected at different temperatures for ethanol acetylation by cell-bound carboxylesterase from lyophilized cells of Aspergillus oryzae have been used to investigate the kinetics and thermodynamics of this esterification in n-heptane. The occurrence of reversible unfolding followed by irreversible denaturation of the enzyme has been proposed to explain the increase in the starting rate of ethyl acetate formation with temperature observed up to 55°C and the consequent fall beyond this threshold. The Arrhenius model has been used to estimate the apparent activation enthalpies of both the acetylation reaction (ΔH≠ = 29-33 kJ mol-1) and reversible enzyme unfolding (ΔHu≠ = 56-63 kJ mol-1). The results of residual activity tests performed with cells previously exposed at different temperatures for variable times enabled us also to estimate the first-order rate constant of irreversible denaturation (2.40 × 10-3 h-1 < kd < 8.11 × 10-3 h-1) as well as the related thermodynamic parameters (ΔHd≠ = 22 kJ mol-1; ΔSd≠ = -0.29 kJ mol-1 K-1). This last phenomenon proved particularly slow for the system under consideration, probably because the biocatalyst link to the mycelium was able to improve its thermostability. In view of future continuous application, the effects of operating time, starting substrate concentration and temperature on the theoretical integral productivity of a fixed-bed column filled with this biocatalyst have been investigated.