As esterifications are equilibrium reactions in which water
is formed as one of the products its concentration necessarily
increases and has a negative influence not only on the substrate
conversion, but on the enzyme activity, as well. Excess of water in
lipase environment reduces its activity as it is known that lipase
require only a minimal amount of water for optimal activity. Therefore
by removing the produced water from the reaction medium it
is possible to achieve higher productivity, higher equilibrium conversion,
as well as higher reaction rates. Different water removal
techniques are presented in the literature and will be summarized
in this section.