Co‐Confinement of Enzymes and Cofactors Within Pickering Droplet Derived Microreactors for Continuous Flow Catalysis
The co-immobilization of enzymes and cofactors represents a sustainable platform for continuous-flow synthesis of chiral pharmaceuticals, yet balancing effective retention with mutual accessibility of them remains challenging. Herein, we report a sol-gel strategy to construct Pickering droplet derived microreactors (PDMRs) for the co-confinement of enzymes and cofactors, which have been applied to continuous flow reactions without exogenous addition of cofactors. Within these self-sufficient PDMRs, the cofactors are reversibly immobilized via electrostatic interactions, enabling in situ regeneration and free access to the enzyme. The PDMRs efficiently encapsulate enzymes and cofactors with 85-100% immobilization efficiency and robust thermal stability. In PDMRs-catalyzed continuous flow reactions, excellent catalytic performance and high cofactor total turnover number (TTN) were obtained in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP<sup>+</sup>)-dependent aldo-keto reductase (AKR) catalyzed enantioselective reductions (80-100% conversions, >99% ee, 500 h stability, up to 173 907 mol mol<sup>-1</sup> TTN), and pyridoxal 5-phosphate (PLP)-dependent transaminase (TA) catalyzed enantioselective transaminations (80-100% conversions, >99% ee, 2 000 h stability, up to 45 552 mol mol<sup>-1</sup> TTN). Furthermore, the PDMRs are extended to the co-confinement of a multi-enzyme system (AKR and glucose dehydrogenase, GDH) with NADP<sup>+</sup> for chiral alcohols synthesis with sustained operational stability. This work establishes a potent and durable strategy for industrial-scale continuous flow manufacturing.
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2026-03-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202525681
- Primary Topic
- Innovative Microfluidic and Catalytic Techniques Innovation
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00