In this work, experiments were carried out to evaluate the esterification activity and conformation of lipase from Burkholderia cepacia in the selected conventional organic solvents, ionic liquids and their co-solvent mixture media. The results revealed that the activity of esterification of B. cepacia lipase was mostly highest in co-solvent mixture of ionic liquids-organic solvents, followed by conventional organic solvents and ionic liquids. Hence, co-solvent mixture was a high-effective strategy to enhance the activity of B. cepacia lipase for non-aqueous enzymology reaction. Conformational studies via circular dichroism spectroscopy indicated that the secondary structure of B. cepacia lipase was variant in the above-mentioned media, especially the content of a-helix, which was probably responsible for lipase activity difference. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.