Abstract
The main obstacle to using lipase as a catalyst in industrial scale biodiesel production is the cost and availability of the enzyme. To overcome this obstacle, the potential of using a whole cell biocatalyst (for at least partial in situ lipase production) was evaluated as a means to reduce the cost of the lipase. The reaction conditions for biodiesel production via transesterification between Jatropha curcas (physic nut) oil and methanol when catalyzed in the presence of lipase-producing Aureobasidium pullulans yeast cells was investigated. The appropriate conditions for optimal biodiesel production were found to be 1:3 oil:methanol molar ratio at 30°C with constant stirring at 250 rpm. Under these conditions a maximum fatty acid methyl ester (biodiesel) production level of 71.8% was obtained after 72 h. Keywords: Lipase, Aureobasidium pullulans , physic nut oil, biodiesel, green energy African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(27), pp. 4380-4386
Highlights
Asides the key issue of human overpopulation, the main ancillary reason for many current global environmental issues results from the level of combustion of nonrenewable and rapidly depleting fossil fuels
Lipase has become attractive as a catalyst because it is a cleaner technology, producing only a little or no toxic or chemical waste and saponification does not occur in the reaction, and so potentially leads to both a high purity biodiesel production and the ability to use a wider range of feedstock including waste oils (Winayanuwattikun et al, 2011)
The specific growth rate and generation time of A. pullulans were calculated to be 0.305 h-1 and 150 min, respectively. This specific growth rate of A. pullulans was better than that reported previously for Saccharomyces sp. (0.08 to 0.13 h-1) (Taccari et al, 2012), which could potentially lead to higher activity and yield when used as catalyst
Summary
Asides the key issue of human overpopulation, the main ancillary reason for many current global environmental issues results from the level of combustion of nonrenewable and rapidly depleting fossil fuels. To overcome this problem, the development of renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources, such as biodiesel, is becoming more attractive. Lipase has become attractive as a catalyst because it is a cleaner technology, producing only a little or no toxic or chemical waste and saponification does not occur in the reaction, and so potentially leads to both a high purity biodiesel production and the ability to use a wider range of feedstock including waste oils (Winayanuwattikun et al, 2011). Biodiesel production using a whole-cell catalyst, where the whole cell culture of the lipase producing microorga-nism is used to (at least partially) provide in situ lipase production rather than its enriched ex-situ produced lipase fraction, was shown to be able to reduce the cost of lipase-catalyzed biodiesel production (Fukuda et al, 2008)
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