PRODUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY BIODIESEL BY ENZYMATIC OIL TRANSESTERIFICATION

In this study, the ability of commercial lipolytic enzyme Lipoprime 50T to catalyze the biotechnologically and environmentally important processes of rapeseed oil hydrolysis and transesterification were investigated and the optimal process conditions were determined using simple and accurate thin layer chromatographic, titrimetric and computer analysis (Micro image 4.0) methods. Lipoprime 50T lipase-catalyzed transesterification of rapeseed oil with several alcohols for fatty acid alkyl esters (biodiesel) production in n-hexane - a common solvent for lipolytic reactions - and in t-butanol - a novel promising solvent for biodiesel production - was investigated. The effects of molar ratio of substrates, reaction temperature and time on the constitution of the methanolysis reaction mixture were analyzed. Lipoprime 50T lipase-catalyzed rapeseed oil methanolysis in n-hexane was determined to be undesirably slow and inefficient process, whereas the lipolytic potential of the studied enzyme was determined to be very high in t-butanol (no rapeseed oil left after 1.5 h from the beginning of the reaction under determined optimal reaction conditions).