Mechanisms of interaction among enzymes and supports

Enzymes are outstanding biocatalysts for catalyzing reactions under mild conditions, with versatile substrate specificity and high product selectivity. Despite these desirable properties, the industrial application of soluble enzymes is hindered by their low operational stability and efficiency of use leading to a high incidence of enzyme’s operational cost and complex recovery after use being usually part of the final product. These downsides have been successfully tackled through the years by enzyme immobilization techniques. The present chapter is aimed to explore this field of biocatalysis, with particular emphasis on inorganic porous materials as supports for enzyme immobilization. Its main goal is to provide basic principles of (1) enzyme-support interaction, (2) peculiar features of the most common porous supports and strategies for tuning their synthesis according to the enzyme structural properties, and (3) complementary characterization techniques of immobilized enzymes.