Granulicella tundricola hydroxynitrile lyase (GtHNL) catalyses the synthesis of chiral (R)‐ cyanohydrins and (R)‐β‐nitro alcohols. The triple variant GtHNL‐A40H/V42T/Q110H (GtHNL‐3V) was immobilised on Celite R‐633 and used in monophasic MTBE saturated with 100 mM KPi buffer pH 7 for the synthesis of (R)‐2‐nitro‐1‐phenylethanol (NPE) in batch and continuous flow systems. Nitromethane was used as a nucleophile. A total of 82% of (R)‐NPE and excellent enantioselectivity (>99%) were achieved in the batch system after 24 hours of reaction time. GtHNL‐3V on Celite R‐ 633 was successfully recycled five times. During more recycling steps a significant decrease in yield was observed while the enantioselectivity remained excellent over eight cycles. The use of a flow system enabled the continuous synthesis of (R)‐NPE. A total of 15% formation of (R)‐NPE was reached using a flow rate of 0.1 mL min⁻¹; unfortunately, the enzyme was not stable, and the yield decreased to 4% after 4 hours on stream. A similar yield was observed during 15 hours at a rate of 0.01 mL min⁻¹. Surprisingly the use of a continuous flow system did not facilitate the process intensification. In fact, the batch system displayed a space‐time‐yield (STY/mgenzyme) of 0.10 g L⁻¹ h⁻¹ mgenzyme⁻¹ whereas the flow system displayed 0.02 and 0.003 g L⁻¹ h⁻¹ mgenzyme⁻¹ at 0.1 and 0.01 mL min⁻¹, respectively. In general, the addition of 1 M nitromethane potentially changed the polarity of the reaction mixture affecting the stability of Celite‐GtHNL‐3V. The nature of the batch system maintained the reaction conditions better than the flow system. The higher yield and productivity observed for the batch system show that it is a superior system for the synthesis of (R)‐NPE compared with the flow approach.

Arabidopsis thaliana hydroxynitrile lyase (AtHNL) catalyzes the selective synthesis of (R)-cyanohydrins. This enzyme is unstable under acidic conditions, therefore its immobilization is necessary for the synthesis of enantiopure cyanohydrins. EziG Opal is a controlled porosity glass material for the immobilization of His-tagged enzymes. The immobilization of His₆-tagged AtHNL on EziG Opal was optimized for higher enzyme stability and tested for the synthesis of (R)-mandelonitrile in batch and continuous flow systems. AtHNL-EziG Opal achieved 95% of conversion after 30 min of reaction time in batch and it was recycled up to eight times with a final conversion of 80% and excellent enantioselectivity. The EziG Opal carrier catalyzed the racemic background reaction; however, the high enantioselectivity observed in the recycling study demonstrated that this was efficiently suppressed by using citrate/phosphate buffer saturated methyl-tert-butylether (MTBE) pH 5 as reaction medium. The continuous flow system achieved 96% of conversion and excellent enantioselectivity at 0.1 mL min⁻¹ . Lower conversion and enantioselectivity were observed at higher flow rates. The specific rate of AtHNL-EziG Opal in flow was 0.26 mol h⁻¹ g_enzyme⁻¹ at 0.1 mL min⁻¹ and 96% of conversion whereas in batch, the immobilized enzyme displayed a specific rate of 0.51 mol h⁻¹ g_enzyme⁻¹ after 30 min of reaction time at a similar level of conversion. However, in terms of productivity the continuous flow system proved to be almost four times more productive than the batch approach, displaying a space-time-yield (STY) of 690 mol_product h⁻¹ L⁻¹ g_enzyme⁻¹ compared to 187 mol_product h⁻¹ L⁻¹ g_enzyme⁻¹ achieved with the batch system.