Supercritical carbon dioxide biocatalysis as a novel and green methodology for the enzymatic acylation of fibrous cellulose in one step.

Aliphatic esters of cellulose have recently raised the interest on the field of biopolymers. The objective of this work is to develop a methodology for the enzymatic acylation of cellulose with long chain fatty groups in one step. Therefore we designed a system at which fibrous cellulose was enzymatically acylated with vinyl laurate in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO(2)) and as a result cellulose laurate was formed.