Gremos_2011_Bioresour.Technol_102_1378

Cellulose esters are an important class of functional biopolymers with great interest in the chemical industry. In this work the enzymatic acylation of Avicel cellulose with vinyl propionate, vinyl laurate and vinyl stearate, has been performed successfully in a solvent free reaction system. At first cellulose was putted into the ionic liquid BMIMCl (1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride) in order to facilitate the unwrap of the structure of the polysaccharide molecule and make it accessible to the enzyme. Thus, after this pretreatment the enzymatic esterification reaction was performed using various hydrolases. The enzymes capable of catalyzing the acylation of cellulose were found to be the immobilized esterase from hog liver and the immobilized cutinase from Fusarium solani, while the lipases used did not show any catalytic activity. Cellulose esters of propionate, laurate and stearate were synthesized with a degree of esterification of 1.9%, 1.3% and 1.0%, respectively. It is the first successful direct enzymatic acylation of cellulose with long chain fatty acids.