The market for industrial enzymes has witnessed constant growth, which is currently around 7% a year, projected to reach $10.5 billion in 2024. Lipases are hydrolase enzymes naturally responsible for triglyceride hydrolysis. They are the most expansively used industrial biocatalysts, with wide application in a broad range of industries. However, these biocatalytic processes are usually limited by the low stability of the enzyme, the half-life time, and the processes required to solve these problems are complex and lack application feasibility at the industrial scale. Emerging technologies create new materials for enzyme carriers and sophisticate the well-known immobilization principles to produce more robust, eco-friendlier, and cheaper biocatalysts. Therefore, this review discusses the trending studies and industrial applications of the materials and protocols for lipase immobilization, analyzing their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, it summarizes the current challenges and potential alternatives for lipases at the industrial level.

Fermentation is an oxygen-free biological process that produces hydrogen, a clean, renewable energy source with the potential to power a low-carbon economy. Bibliometric analysis is crucial in academic research to evaluate scientific production, identify trends and contributors, and map the development of a field, providing valuable information to guide researchers and promote scientific innovation. This review provides an advanced bibliometric analysis and a future perspective on fermentation for hydrogen production. By searching WoS, we evaluated and refined 62,087 articles to 4493 articles. This allowed us to identify the most important journals, countries, institutions, and authors in the field. In addition, the ten most cited articles and the dominant research areas were identified. A keyword analysis revealed five research clusters that illustrate where research is progressing. The outlook indicates that a deeper understanding of microbiology and support from energy policy will drive the development of hydrogen from fermentation.

This study aims to explore technological advances and prospects in phenol treatment by providing a detailed bibliometric survey of wastewater treatment applications, highlighting innovative advances in research. Using the Web of Science database, we identified 79,104 articles from 2003 to 2023, later refined to 1848. The keywords were used for the initial search: “phenol”, “wastewater”, “degradation”, “treatment” and “removal”. The bibliographic review details the occurrence of journals, authors, newspapers, countries, institutions, keywords, highly cited articles, and prominent predominant research fields. In particular, the field of “Engineering” was responsible for 32% of the published articles, followed by “Ecology of Environmental Sciences” (25%) and “Chemistry” (12%). In addition, a keyword analysis revealed five major groups of clusters that indicate where the research is progressing. This aspect is crucial for understanding the evolution and perspectives of research interests over time. Therefore, future research in the field should prioritize wastewater treatment and feedstock diversification. This focus is essential to address significant challenges, such as production costs, stability, and durability of treatment processes. Graphical Abstract

This paper aims to present the advances related to the biotechnological application of lipases Y. lipolytica, presenting their properties and more efficient ways to use them in different industrial applications. Waste treatment and bioremediation highlight recent studies and advances and the interest in large-scale applications in the food sector and biofuel production. The USA and China, two major world powers in industy, are of utmost importance in the search for the improvement in the development and properties of a controlled system for the large-scale production of a significant number of applications of lipase from Y. lipolytica.

Lignocellulosic biomasses are used in several applications, such as energy production, materials, and biofuels. These applications result in increased consumption and waste generation of these materials. However, alternative uses are being developed to solve the problem of waste generated in the industry. Thus, research is carried out to ensure the use of these biomasses as enzymatic support. These surveys can be accompanied using the advanced bibliometric analysis tool that can help determine the biomasses used and other perspectives on the subject. With this, the present work aims to carry out an advanced bibliometric analysis approaching the main studies related to the use of lignocellulosic biomass as an enzymatic support. This study will be carried out by highlighting the main countries/regions that carry out productions, research areas that involve the theme, and future trends in these areas. It was observed that there is a cooperation between China, USA, and India, where China holds 28.07% of publications in this area, being the country with the greatest impact in the area. Finally, it is possible to define that the use of these new supports is a trend in the field of biotechnology.

In this study, a Taguchi experimental design was used for optimzing the immobilization of the lipase Eversa^® Transform 2.0 (EVS) onto a hybrid support consisting of chitosan (CHI) and agarose (AGA), with glutaraldehyde (GLU) used as the support activator. The biocatalyst obtained was characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Thermogravimetry (TGA), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The optimized reaction conditions (60 min, 5 mM ionic strength, 1% GLU concentration, and 5 mg protein load per g of support) resulted in a highly active biocatalyst (74.39 ± 0.48 U/g) and delivered an immobilization yield of 74.20 ± 0.28%. The biocatalyst produced was observed to lose only 15.3% of its activity after 61 days of storage. The activity was also observed to increase by 96.70% ± 0.76, 27.34% ± 2.34, and 84.35% ± 1.68 in the presence of the organic solvents hexane, cyclohexane, and methanol, respectively. Additionally, the byocatalist showed more pronounced activity at temperatures above 50 °C and was still able to retain approximately 30% of it at 70 °C. These values were found to be higher at alkaline pHs, as the activity of Eversa^® 2.0 Transform saw an increase of up to 140% at pH 9. The desorption tests performed did not reveal any enzymatic detachment from the support. The novel biocatalyst also showed promising ester-lubricating properties. Furthermore, the in silico study revealed a binding affinity of −5.1 kcal/mol between oleic acid and the enzyme, suggesting that the combination of the substrate and the lipase was more stable and therefore, suitable for esterification. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT