Enzymatic production of natural flavour esters in an integrated process

Production of natural flavour ester by lipase was aimed to be performed in an integrated system, where pervaporation is in-line connected to the esterification process. In our preliminary experiments the initial components were acetic acid and ethanol, the solvent of the esterification was the alcohol itself. The volatile product (flavour ester) and water were removed continuously by pervaporation and adsorption, respectively, in order to avoid product inhibition and promote ester production. Additional experiments were carried out to investigate water removal by reverse osmosis. However, no significant separation efficiency was observed. Water removal by pervaporation is presently under study.