The effect of temperature, pressure, exposure time, and depressurization rate on lipase activity in SCCO2.

We investigated the influence of temperature, pressure, exposure time, and decompression rate on lipase activity in high-pressure CO2 medium. A high-pressure, variable-volume view cell was employed in the experiments, varying the temperature from 30 to 70 degrees C in the pressure range of 70-250 bar at various high-pressure exposure times (60-360 min) and adopting several decompression rates (10-200 kg/[m3 x min]). The results obtained show that an increase in temperature and density led to an enhancement of enzyme activity losses while the decompression rates had a weak influence on enzyme inactivation.