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Enzymatic Synthesis of Biodiesel from Transesterification Reactions of Vegetable Oils and Short Chain Alcohols

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Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society

Abstract

Biodiesel synthesis by alcoholysis of three vegetable oils (soybean, sunflower and rice bran) catalyzed by three commercial lipases (Novozym 435, Lipozyme TL-IM and Lipozyme RM-IM), and the optimization of the enzymes stability over repeated batches is described. The effects of the molar ratio of alcohol to oil and the reaction temperature with methanol, ethanol, propanol and butanol were also studied. All three enzymes displayed similar reaction kinetics with all three oils and no significant differences were observed. However, each lipase displayed the highest alcoholysis activity with a different alcohol. Novozym 435 presented higher activity in methanolysis, at a 5:1 methanol:oil molar ratio; Lipozyme TL-IM presented higher activity in ethanolysis, at a 7:1 ethanol:oil molar ratio; and Lipozyme RM-IM presented higher activity in butanolysis, at a 9:1 butanol:oil molar ratio. The optimal temperature was in the range of 30–35 °C for all lipases. The assessment of enzyme stability over repeated batches was carried out by washing the immobilized enzymes with different solvents (n-hexane, water, ethanol, or propanol) after each batch. When washing with n-hexane, approximately 90% of the enzyme activity remained after seven synthesis cycles.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank CNPq and CAPES for their financial support of this research and for the scholarship of the first author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul State, Rua Professor Luiz Englert, Porto Alegre, ZC 90040-040, RS, Brazil

    Rafael Costa Rodrigues, Giandra Volpato & Keiko Wada

  2. Food Science and Technology Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul State, Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9500, P.O. Box 15090, Porto Alegre, ZC 91501-970, RS, Brazil

    Rafael Costa Rodrigues, Giandra Volpato & Marco Antônio Záchia Ayub

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  1. Rafael Costa Rodrigues
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  2. Giandra Volpato
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  3. Keiko Wada
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  4. Marco Antônio Záchia Ayub
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Correspondence to Marco Antônio Záchia Ayub.

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Rodrigues, R.C., Volpato, G., Wada, K. et al. Enzymatic Synthesis of Biodiesel from Transesterification Reactions of Vegetable Oils and Short Chain Alcohols. J Am Oil Chem Soc 85, 925–930 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-008-1284-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-008-1284-0

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