Lipase immobilization with support materials, preparation techniques, and applications: Present and future aspects

Immobilized lipase has become one of the most important biocatalytic systems used for many industrial purposes, especially in the fuel, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and food industries. Immobilized lipase has advantages of good chemical and thermal stability, in addition to reuse and easy recovery, allowing it to serve as a replacement for chemical catalysts in industrial applications. In this regard, there has been rapidly growing interest in developing new support materials (SMs) and new protocols for lipase immobilization (LI). In this review, various types of SMs used for LI are extensively discussed, with clarification of their advantages and disadvantages. In addition, different methods of LI are explained with a particular emphasis on their respective benefits and drawbacks. The applications of immobilized lipase in producing biodiesel as well as other organic synthesis processes are summarized with a mention of future prospects and directions.