Abstract
Fatty acids from vegetable oils are useful building blocks for industrial materials. The purpose of this work was to prepare erucic acid with high purity from a vegetable oil. High purity erucic acid is used for the production of erucamide with applications in plastics manufacturing. A newly developed transgenic Crambe line produces seed oil with 68 % erucic acid compared to 53 % in the wild type oil. Further enrichment of erucic acid from Crambe (wild type and transgenic) oil was achieved by selective enzymatic hydrolysis. Using Candida rugosa lipase as catalyst, other fatty acids were preferentially hydrolysed from the triacylglycerols and erucic acid was enriched in the acylglycerol fraction. The highest content of erucic acid achieved in that fraction was 95 %. The combination of modern plant breeding and enzyme technology is a promising approach for preparation of fatty acids of high purity.
Highlights
Fatty acids from vegetable oils are useful building blocks for industrial materials
Transesterification of vegetable oils to methyl esters to be used as biodiesel is carried out industrially [1] and fatty acids are used as building blocks in many products
After separation of the acylglycerol and free fatty acid fractions a product further enriched in erucic acid can be obtained
Summary
Fatty acids from vegetable oils are useful building blocks for industrial materials. The purpose of this work was to prepare erucic acid with high purity from a vegetable oil. Transesterification of vegetable oils to methyl esters to be used as biodiesel is carried out industrially [1] and fatty acids are used as building blocks in many products. Fatty acids can be used as the hydrophobic building blocks of surfactants such as carbohydrate esters [6, 7]. Still another application is the use of erucic acid and its derivatives, such as erucamide, in Sometimes the natural mixture of fatty acids from a vegetable oil can be used in the final product, but in most cases there is a need for purification of fatty acids. The erucic acid level still needs to be enriched further for erucamide production
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
