In this study solid and liquid wastes from the olive oil processing industry were evaluated as substrates for Yarrowia lipolytica growth with the aim of lipase production. Olive mill wastewater and olive oil cake seemed to provide necessary nutrients and physical support for the yeast to grow and produce enzyme. The highest lipolytic activity of 850 IU dm-3 was achieved after 4 days of submerged cultivation in supplemented olive mill wastewater. In addition, olive oil cake appeared to be a convenient substrate for lipase production under solid state fermentation mode. Lipase production was further improved by media supplementation and/or change in physical settings of the experiment. However, the most significant improvement of lipase production under solid state fermentation was achieved by an alkaline treatment of the substrate (more than 10-fold) when the amount of produced lipase reached up to ~40 IU g-1 of substrate.

The esterification is well-established type of reaction in organic synthesis used for manufacturing various valuable esters used prevalently as ingredients of food, skincare products, pharmaceuticals and fuels. In recent decades biocatalytic synthetic routes based on using enzymes as catalysts have received a lot of attention in scientific researches and industry. Main advantages of enzymatic esterifications are high selectivity (regioselectivity and enantioselectivity), performing reaction at milder conditions (moderate temperature and atmospheric pressure) and the fact that enzymatically synthesized product gain label of natural product, which increases its market appeal. The purpose of this review is to point out the most important advances in lipase-catalyzed ester synthesis in nonconventional reaction media, with special focus on several most important types of ester. This part of review starts with outcomes in synthesis of aroma esters, usually obtained using monofunctional aliphatic alcohols and acids, which have been investigated for decades and industrial processes are already established. However, later sections are dedicated to enzymatic esterification of more complex molecules (carbohydrates, vitamin C, flavonoids) having more than one functional groups, which are subject of numerous studies in recent times because in these reactions regioselectivity of biocatalysts can be fully explored and processes are still subject of optimization, especially with respect to selection of reaction media and media engineering.