Towards an affordable enzymatic production of biopolyols – Comparing the immobilization of lipases by two optimized techniques

Abstract

The production of biopolyols (sustainable, renewable and biodegradable precursors), is exclusively focused on the conventional chemical synthesis pathways, and currently, no polyols are produced by enzymatic processes at an industrial scale, because they are not competitive when compared to petrochemically based polyols due to the overall cost for their production. This can be mainly attributed to the high costs of commercial enzymes used in this process and their use is limited by their lack of stability during the bioprocess. Immobilization of enzymes gives the opportunity to converge two important features of enzymes: to increase the protein stability and to reuse enzyme as a catalyst. By this study, we were aiming to explore alternatives to commercially available enzymes. We investigated an effective hydrolytic route from epoxidized oils to polyols by applying lipolytic enzymes from Yarrowia lipolytica and Candida cylindracea immobilized onto fumed silica nanoparticles (fsNP) and those immobilized by the formation of cross-linked enzyme aggregates (CLEAs). Oxirane ring hydrolysis of epoxidized rapeseed oil catalyzed by lipase-fsNP and CLEAs was investigated with respect to various parameters (temperature, pH, concentrations, time of sorption and cross-linking, etc.). The highest conversions for oxirane ring hydrolysis were estimated for CLEA-Lip-derivatives (45–56%).