Abstract:The catalytic performance of laccase in a novel reverse micellar system, which adopted rhamnolipid (RL, an anionic bio-surfactant) as surfactant with isooctane and hexanol as solvent and cosurfactant, were studied. The effect of several significant factors on the catalytic performance of laccase, such as the construction of organic phase, the concentration of RL, water content(W0), pH value and salt concentration, were investigated and analyzed. The optimum catalytic activity and stability of laccase could be approached at following condition: V(hexanol)/V(isooctane): 1:1.8, RL concentration: 13 mmol/L, W0: 42, pH: 5.0, KCl concentration: 10 mmol/L. For a comparative purpose, the catalytic performance of laccase in AOT-based reverse micellar system( AOT-RMS) and RL-based reverse micellar system( RL-RMS) were compared. Both of laccase’s catalytic activity and stability in RL-RMS were much higher than those in AOT-RMS, which unveiled that bio-surfactants were much more suitable in contrusting enzyme-reverse micellar systems compared with traditional synthetic surfactants.