Lipases as a Potential Biotechnological Tool for the Production of Biodiesel Fuel

The industrial use of lipases during the last three decades has attracted many industries including the nutraceutical, food, and the pharma industries. This group of enzymes has gained such popularity and diverse industrial applications mainly because of its capability of catalyzing the reverse hydrolytic reactions in low-water organic media.

Another field of recent industrial interest worldwide is focused on the use of lipases to catalyze the production of biodiesel fuel via the reaction between oil triglycerides and methanol. Inhibition of the catalytic activity of lipases caused by short-chain alcohols, typically methanol, and the severe mass transfer constraints imposed by the reactants and products under the reaction conditions unfortunately have restricted the use of lipases for the production of biodiesel at commercial scales so far. This work will present a new developed modified-immobilized enzyme preparation possessing the capability of catalyzing esterification as well as transesterification reactions, separately and simultaneously, between any source of fatty acids and methanol. The developed biocatalyst featured with its high resistance to methanol has also been designed to enable its use in batch as well as in continuous reactors for the production of fatty acid methyl esters (Biodiesel) using low quality feedstocks of Free Fatty Acids (FFAs) content in the range of 0-100%. Based on the developed enzymatic process different pilot units have been designed and built worldwide for the production of biodiesel complying with the ASTM and EN specs using high FFAs multiple feedstocks. The recent results from commercial continuous units for the production of biodiesel using the developed immobilized lipase and high FFAs multiple feedstocks will also be presented.