The interfacial activation mechanism of lipase enables it to exhibit high catalytic activity in water-in-oil (W/O) microemulsions. However, W/O microemulsions have obvious defects such as a small water pool and a large demand for surfactants. The present study investigated the substitutability of conventional oil-in-water (O/W) and W/O emulsions as lipase catalytic systems. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/gold nanoparticles (GNPs) or CNT-GNP electrostatically bonded complexes were added into the conventional emulsion system.The simulated biphasic system and fluorescence study showed different and even contradictory results for the interfacial behavior of CNTs and CNT-GNP complexes due to the variation of the dispersibility of CNTs in cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). Results also showed that conventional O/W emulsions were more suitable for lipase catalysis than conventional W/O emulsions. When CNTs or CNT -GNP complexes were added in a conventional O/W emulsion system, the catalytic activity of lipase was significantly promoted (up to 4.8-fold using CNTs and 3.5-fold using CNT -GNP complexes compared with free lipase).The possible reason for this promotion may be due to the increase in the interface area. The current study was not only the latest exploration of lipase activity promotion via nanomaterials, but also explored a new lipase catalytic system and provides further insight into improving the catalytic performance of lipase in conventional emulsions. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.