Enzyme Stability Studies in Ionic Liquid

Enzymes are becoming more important on an industrial level as focus has shifted towards more environmentally benign alternatives in the production of, e.g. pharmaceuticals and specialty chemicals. Researchers have shown that some enzymes can be stabilized and retain activity when dissolved in ionic liquids, which are salts that are normally liquid at room temperature. Our work focused on the study of thermophilic enzymes obtained from thermus thermophilus, as these enzymes prefer to function at higher temperatures more appropriate for industrial applications. We have performed kinetic studies to measure the activity of the enzyme with a selection of ionic liquids at various concentrations. It appears that the enzyme is stable in high concentrations with some of the ionic liquids, especially AMIM Cl and AAIM Cl. We will present our results from these studies to determine optimized conditions for ionic liquid/enzyme combinations