Immobilized Mucor miehei lipase catalyzes synthesis reactions between glycerol and oleic acid. No organic solvent is necessary to solubilize the substrates, which allows for the use of a reaction medium solely composed of the necessary substrates. Water produced in the reaction evaporates due to the high temperature used for the process. A conversion of 86% of oleic acid into triolein is obtained when using the substrates in stoichiometric amounts. Varying the ratio of glycerol over oleic acid allows for the preferential synthesis of one of the glycerides. Some batch reactors have been set up using different means of removing the water: spontaneous evaporation, molecular sieves, vacuum, and dry air bubbling.

The lipase (triacylglycerol acylhydrolase, E.C. 3.1.1.3) catalyzed synthesis of wax esters has been investigated via two different approaches. All studies were performed using an immobilized 1,3‐specific lipase [Lipozyme from Novo Industries (Montréal, Québec, Canada)]. The first approach involves reacting stoichiometric amounts of a fatty acid and stearyl alcohol in the presence of lipase. The medium is solvent‐free, which allows for high substrate concentrations (1.55 M) and use of 5% (w/w) Lipozyme. In this reaction, maximum wax ester synthesis was found to be dependent upon the efficient removal of the water produced by the reaction. Under optimal conditions, yields of 100% were routinely reached after only 2 hr. The medium was then exclusively composed of the wax and the enzyme, no purification was required. The second method involves alcoholysis of a triglyceride, in this case triolein, with stearyl alcohol to produce 1,2‐diolein, 2‐monoolein and the wax ester of oleic acid. Again, no organic solvent was used. The wax ester yield was found to be directly dependent upon the alcohol concentration that was used to modulate the outcome of the reaction towards either the wax or the partial glycerides. The process was applied to the synthesis of waxes from high erucic acid rapeseed oil.

The kinetics of the synthesis of triolein catalyzed by immobilized Mucor miehei lipase were studied. Equilibrium constants for the synthesis of mono-, di-, and triolein were calculated from the equilibrium compositions for different initial ratios of glycerol and oleic acid by means of multiresponse regression. The 1,3-specific lipase can catalyze the synthesis of triolein because the ester enzymatically formed with the primary alcohol isomerizes, through acyl migration, to an ester on the secondary hydroxyl. The freed primary hydroxyl may then undergo further enzymatic conversion. The rates of isomerization depend on the concentration of oleic acid.

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