Abstract
BackgroundEnzymatic biodiesel is becoming an increasingly popular topic in bioenergy literature because of its potential to overcome the problems posed by chemical processes. However, the high cost of the enzymatic process still remains the main drawback for its industrial application, mostly because of the high price of refined oils. Unfortunately, low cost substrates, such as crude soybean oil, often release a product that hardly accomplishes the final required biodiesel specifications and need an additional pretreatment for gums removal. In order to reduce costs and to make the enzymatic process more efficient, we developed an innovative system for enzymatic biodiesel production involving a combination of a lipase and two phospholipases. This allows performing the enzymatic degumming and transesterification in a single step, using crude soybean oil as feedstock, and converting part of the phospholipids into biodiesel. Since the two processes have never been studied together, an accurate analysis of the different reaction components and conditions was carried out.ResultsCrude soybean oil, used as low cost feedstock, is characterized by a high content of phospholipids (900 ppm of phosphorus). However, after the combined activity of different phospholipases and liquid lipase Callera Trans L, a complete transformation into fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs >95%) and a good reduction of phosphorus (P <5 ppm) was achieved. The combination of enzymes allowed avoidance of the acid treatment required for gums removal, the consequent caustic neutralization, and the high temperature commonly used in degumming systems, making the overall process more eco-friendly and with higher yield. Once the conditions were established, the process was also tested with different vegetable oils with variable phosphorus contents.ConclusionsUse of liquid lipase Callera Trans L in biodiesel production can provide numerous and sustainable benefits. Besides reducing the costs derived from enzyme immobilization, the lipase can be used in combination with other enzymes such as phospholipases for gums removal, thus allowing the use of much cheaper, non-refined oils. The possibility to perform degumming and transesterification in a single tank involves a great efficiency increase in the new era of enzymatic biodiesel production at industrial scale.
Highlights
Enzymatic biodiesel is becoming an increasingly popular topic in bioenergy literature because of its potential to overcome the problems posed by chemical processes
Soluble lipases can be used under mild reaction conditions, have a faster reaction time, display higher conversion rates than immobilized enzymes [9], and allow, without any fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) yield loss, the presence of water in the process, which is required for oil pretreatment or during downstream steps [11]
The use of liquid instead of immobilized enzyme has resulted in a significant simplification of oil transesterification and is the background for the new, cost-effective process developed by Novozymes (Bagsværd, Denmark) using liquid lipase Callera Trans L, which is being scaled-up at several production plants for biodiesel synthesis from different feedstocks [14]
Summary
Enzymatic biodiesel is becoming an increasingly popular topic in bioenergy literature because of its potential to overcome the problems posed by chemical processes. In order to reduce costs and to make the enzymatic process more efficient, we developed an innovative system for enzymatic biodiesel production involving a combination of a lipase and two phospholipases. This allows performing the enzymatic degumming and transesterification in a single step, using crude soybean oil as feedstock, and converting part of the phospholipids into biodiesel. The use of liquid instead of immobilized enzyme has resulted in a significant simplification of oil transesterification and is the background for the new, cost-effective process developed by Novozymes (Bagsværd, Denmark) using liquid lipase Callera Trans L, which is being scaled-up at several production plants for biodiesel synthesis from different feedstocks [14]
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