Green poly(urea-urethane) nanoparticles for immobilization of lipase Eversa Transformer 2.0

Glycerolysis is one of the most important transesterification reactions, since is possible to obtain mono- and diacylglycerols, which have great importance in the food and pharmaceutical industries. This reaction occurs between vegetable oil and glycerol in the presence of a catalyst (that may be chemical or biological). In this context, the biocatalysts attracted more attention during the last years, because they are environmentally friendly, present higher conversions and milder reaction conditions are required. Besides, this reaction is able to be carried out in a solvent-free system, approaching with the green chemistry precepts. Recently, glycerolysis products have been used as monomers for poly(urea-urethane) (PUU) nanoparticles polymerization. In this sense, this work studied the ability of the free lipase Eversa Transformer 2.0 as a catalyst for enzymatic glycerolysis reaction in a solvent-free system and after this, the potential of the glycerolysis product to be used as a monomer to obtain PUU nanoparticles was investigated. The last step was immobilization of the same lipase in the nanoparticle surface since the nanomaterials present great advantages as larger specific surface area, less diffusion limitation, high mechanical strength, lower mass transfer resistance, homogeneous coating, and well-defined particles.