ABSTRACT
Enzymatic catalysis has gained considerable attention in recent years as an efcient tool for the synthesis of natural products, pharmaceuticals, ne chemicals, and food ingredients.
The production of ne chemicals results in the generation of considerable volumes of waste, as the syntheses generally include a number of steps. The yield of each of these steps is usually 60%–90%, but 10% is also not unusual. On the basis of these data, we can conclude that typically 1 kg of end-product leads to the generation of 15 kg of wastes or more. Most of the generated wastes are solvents and by-products from solvents and intermediates. Therefore, ideally several reactions should be performed in water or in supercritical uids (SCFs).
