Enzymatic polymerization represents today an effective and preferable alternative to conventional chemically-catalyzed processes. It offers significant advantages, summarized in the applied mild reaction conditions mainly in terms of temperature and toxicity, and high selectivity of enzymes, avoiding protection-deprotection strategies and resulting in improved quality/performance of end products. Especially for polycondensation polymers, biocatalyzed synthetic routes have been under research for the last thirty years, including homo- and copolymerization of a significant number of monomers. Aliphatic polyesters, polyamides and at a much lower extent polyesteramides, represent the core of the pertinent studies, and are systematically discussed in the current review. Emphasis is given on polycondensates with biodegradability properties, derived from bio-based monomers such as succinic acid, 1,3- propanediol and lactide/lactic acid.

Free or immobilized lipases and cutinases are the predominant biocatalysts in the relevant polymer families, being used in polycondensation as well as in ring-opening reaction schemes. The efficiency of the different biocatalytic processes is herein correlated to important process parameters, such as the enzyme and monomer type, the reaction temperature and time, the polymerization technique (solution or solvent-free), as well as the by-product removal method, e.g., application of vacuum, water absorption by molecular sieves, azeotropic distillation.

如今，酶促聚合反应是常规化学催化方法的一种有效且优选的替代方法。它具有显着的优势，在所应用的温和反应条件下总结出主要的优点，主要是在温度和毒性以及酶的高选择性方面，避免了保护-脱保护策略，从而提高了最终产品的质量/性能。特别是对于缩聚聚合物，近三十年来一直在研究生物催化的合成途径，包括大量单体的均聚和共聚。脂肪族聚酯，聚酰胺和含量较低的聚酯酰胺代表了相关研究的核心，并在本综述中进行了系统地讨论。重点是具有生物降解性能的缩聚物，

游离或固定的脂肪酶和角质酶是相关聚合物家族中的主要生物催化剂，用于缩聚反应和开环反应方案中。本文将不同生物催化过程的效率与重要的过程参数相关，例如酶和单体类型，反应温度和时间，聚合技术（无溶液或无溶剂）以及副产物去除方法，例如，施加真空，分子筛吸水，共沸蒸馏。