Biocatalysis

The “Biocatalysis” section of the journal Catalysts aims to publish original, novel and high-impact contributions related to this cross-disciplinary field of biotechnology, and will attract the interest of chemists, enzymologists, microbiologists, molecular biologists, polymer scientists, bioinformaticians and engineers. Biocatalysis is founded on the use of the most efficient catalysts in nature, which are enzymes, and can be defined as the transformation of organic compounds catalyzed either by living cells or by their components. Over the past twenty years, major technological and scientific advances have established Biocatalysis as an environmentally friendly and sustainable alternative to traditional chemical synthesis. The chemo-, regio-, diastereo- and enantio-selectivity of biocatalysts are among the properties that render them superior to chemical catalysts. Such properties have been utilized in various industrial applications, such as in food processing, biomass conversion, polymer synthesis and modification, organic synthesis of fine chemicals and particularly for the production of pharmaceutical intermediates. For promoting a sustainable society and bio-economy, novel biocatalysts need to be discovered for the conversion of residual lignocellulosic biomass into energy, materials and fine chemicals on behalf of the biorefinery concept. DNA sequencing and gene synthesis advances allow the tailoring of biocatalysts through rational or directed evolution methodologies for improving, altering or even designing the catalytic properties of enzymes for catalyzing reactions that have never been observed in nature before.

The “Biocatalysis” section invites submissions of communications, research papers, and review articles in the following subject areas, but without being limited to them:

• Biocatalyst immobilization
• Biocatalytic cascade reactions
• Bioelectrochemistry
• Biotransformations
• Cell factory
• Chemo-biocatalytic processes
• Computational Biocatalysis
• Design of biocatalytic processes
• Environmental Biocatalysis
• Enzymatic polymerization and polymer modification
• Enzyme formulation
• Flow Biocatalysis
• Industrial Biocatalysis
• Metabolic Engineering
• Novel Enzymes
• Protein engineering
• Reaction engineering in biocatalytic systems

The open access journal Catalysts, in general, and this section on Biocatalysis, in particular, offers high-quality peer review followed by a rapid publication decision.