Biocatalysis and Nanotechnology

This book provides an actual overview of the various relations between nanotechnology and biocatalysis. Recently, nanobiocatalysis has rapidly developed to a subarea of enzyme biotechnology. It combines the advances in nanotechnology that have generated nanoscale materials of different sizes, shapes, and physicochemical properties, with the excellent characteristics of biocatalysts to an innovative technology. The book discusses the fabrication and application of these nanomaterials for the immobilization of enzymes for the sustainable production of goods and chemicals. Nanosupports are of advantage compared with bulk solid materials due to their high surface area resulting in a comparatively high enzyme loading and a significantly reduced mass transfer limitation. These characteristics are also of great use for applications in the fields of enzymatic biosensors, biofuel cells, bioelectronics, and photoelectrochemical analyte detection, where conductive nanomaterials improve the rate of electron transfer. Furthermore, nanostructured enzyme catalysis in organic solvents and its potential application for biodiesel production, probing of enzymatic activity, and identification of enzyme functions or inorganic nanoparticles as enzyme mimics together with an overview of nanotoxicology are also covered in this book.

Peter Grunwald studied chemistry at the University of Saarbrucken and the University of Hamburg, Germany, where he graduated in the field of high-frequency spectroscopy, and then became a staff member of the Institute of Physical Chemistry. After receiving his PhD in physical chemistry from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hamburg, he founded a biotechnology research group. He was appointed professor in 2001. His research interests focus on the preparation and properties of immobilized enzymes, kinetics of enzymes in organic solvents, and interactions between biocatalysts and heavy metal ions. Prof. Grunwald is also interested in chemical education, including curriculum development.