Challenges and Opportunities: Porous Supports in Carbonic Anhydrase Immobilization

Carbonic anhydrases (CAs, EC 4.2.1.1) are zinc-containing metalloenzymes that can accelerate the hydration rate of CO2 into HCO3. But natural CA is usually unstable in the denatured environment. Meanwhile, several disadvantages including difficult separation, poor reusability, as well as short shelf lifetime also restricted their practical applications. The immobilization technology offers a solid foundation for increasing the recoverability of CAs from its products and substrates with remarkable turnover. However, the performance of the support materials can affect the catalytic activity of the immobilized CAs. An ideal support material should have good mechanical strength, stability, high affinity for enzymes, and certain inertia. Therefore, the design and preparation of materials with an excellent performance have become the research hotspot of biocatalysis. Scientific studies have reported the immobilization and their promising applications in many fields. Nevertheless, a few studies have investigated the CAs and their immobilized support. Thus, this review presents the results of CA research status, common working materials used for immobilization, and some existing problems are also analyzed. Moreover, it also explicitly unveils some important aspects not covering in previous literature, which will be helpful for improving CA utilization in practical applications in the future.