Issue 10, 2022

CO2-responsive Pickering emulsions stabilized by soft protein particles for interfacial biocatalysis

Abstract

Pickering emulsions are emulsions stabilized by colloidal particles and serve as an excellent platform for biphasic enzymatic catalysis. However, developing simple and green strategies to avoid enzyme denaturation, facilitate product separation, and achieve the recovery of enzyme and colloidal particle stabilizers is still a challenge. This study aimed to report an efficient and sustainable biocatalysis system via a robust CO2/N2-responsive Pickering oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion stabilized solely by pure sodium caseinate (NaCas), which was made naturally in a scalable manner. The NaCas-stabilized emulsion displayed a much higher reaction efficiency compared with conventional CO2/N2-responsive Pickering emulsions stabilized by solid particles with functional groups from polymers or surfactants introduced to tailor responsiveness, reflected by the fact that most enzymes were transferred and enriched at the oil–water interface. More importantly, the demulsification, product separation, and recycling of the NaCas emulsifier as well as the enzyme could be facilely achieved by alternatively bubbling CO2/N2 more than 30 times. Moreover, the recycled enzyme still maintained its catalytic activity, with a conversion yield of more than 90% after each cycle, which was not found in any of the previously reported CO2-responsive systems. This responsive system worked well for many different types of oils and was the first to report on a protein-based CO2/N2-responsive emulsion, holding great promise for the development of more sustainable, green chemical conversion processes for the food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical industries.

Graphical abstract: CO2-responsive Pickering emulsions stabilized by soft protein particles for interfacial biocatalysis

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
05 nov 2021
Accepted
18 jan 2022
First published
18 jan 2022
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2022,13, 2884-2890

CO2-responsive Pickering emulsions stabilized by soft protein particles for interfacial biocatalysis

Y. Xi, B. Liu, S. Wang, S. Wei, S. Yin, T. Ngai and X. Yang, Chem. Sci., 2022, 13, 2884 DOI: 10.1039/D1SC06146A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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