Synthesis and characterization of structured lipid rich in behenic acid by enzymatic interesterification

Abstract

Enzymatic interesterification has the advantage of promoting great control over the positional distribution of fatty acids in the final product. However, the difficulties associated with process control and scaling-up have reduced its industrial use as a catalyst for lipid modification. Thus, the objective of this work was to scale-up production and to evaluate the physic-chemical properties of a structured lipid (SL) based on soybean, olive and fully hydrogenated crambe oils obtained by an enzymatic interesterification process. Enzyme conditioning promoted low concentration of free fatty acids in the SL and the rearrangement of trisaturated triacylglycerols was completed after a reaction time of 4h. The scaling-up did not reproduce exactly the same physicochemical modifications previously observed in SL obtained in a benchscale, but the process of obtaining the SL was controlled and showed low variation of the acidity indexes, triacylglycerol composition, regiospecificity and crystallization profile, and the levels of tocopherols, chlorophyll and oxidative stability did not altered. Thus, it was possible to upscale the SL production by 50 times, with modifications in its physico-chemical properties due to differences in lipase activity.