Recently, significant efforts have been devoted into the study of the effect of hydrophobic supports on the catalytic properties of immobilized lipases. It seems that immobilization lipases on hydrophobic supports is a simple and efficient method to improve the catalytic activity of lipases. In this study, the hydrophobic poly(N-propyl-norbornene-exo-2,3-dicarboximide)s with well-controlled molecular weight were synthesized by the living ring-opening metathesis polymerization, and the lipases from Pseudo- monas sp. were then immobilized on these hydrophobic polymer supports through the physical ad- sorption. The immobilized lipases exhibited higher activity and enantioselectivity for the transesterifi- cation of 2-octanol than those of free lipases. Furthermore, we investigated the polymer molecular weight-mediated catalytic properties of immobilized lipases. It was found that the catalytic activity and E value of the immobilized lipases increased with the increase of the polymer molecular weight. At the polymeric molecular weight of about 40kDa, the highest E value (58 at 54.2% of conversion, enanti- omeric excess = 99%) was reached. After the molecular weight of polymers getting higher than 40 kDa, catalytic activity and E value of the immobilized lipase decreased.
