A comprehensive study of reaction parameters in the enzymatic production of novel biofuels integrating glycerol into their composition

Production of a Biofuel that Keeps the Glycerin as Monoglycerides by Using Supported KF as Heterogeneous Catalyst

“…Thus, reactions were carried out with 0.8 g of 10 wt% supported KF on the three inorganic solids, Al 2 O 3 , ZnO and MgO, at 65 ºC reaction temperature with 12 mL of sunflower oil (32 cSt, kinematic viscosity) and 2.43 mL of methanol. According to the results, with all the three KF supported catalysts studied, under the indicated experimental conditions, were obtained similar results as those achieved in the enzymatic processes [19][20][21][22][23][24], where instead of glycerol are obtained the monoacylglycerol that are soluble in the FAME mix. The experimental conditions currently applied were clearly softer than those required for the production of conventional biodiesel with supported KF catalysts [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36].…”

“…As carrier gas helium is used, with a flow of 1.5 ml/min, it has been applied a heating ramp from 50 °C to 200 °C at a rate of 7 °C/min, followed by another ramp from 200 °C to 360 °C at a rate of 15 ºC/min, maintaining the oven temperature at 360 °C for 10 minutes using as internal standard n-hexadecane (cetane) to quantify the content of methyl esters and glycerides (-mono, di and triglycerides) with the help of some commercial standard fatty acid esters, respectively. This method allows us to obtain a complete analysis of the sample in a single injection and in a time not higher than 65 minutes, which simplifies the process and increases the speed of analysis [19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

“…This enzymatic method has shown promising results [19][20][21][22][23][24] in the obtaining of a new biofuel, named Ecodiesel-100, patented by University of Cordoba [22] using pig pancreatic lipase (PPL) to obtain the enantioselective ethanolysis of sunflower oil. This method takes advantage of the 1.3-selective nature of many lipases, which allows stopping the process in the second step of the alcoholysis reaction to obtain a mixture of two moles of FAEE and one MG.…”

“…In this respect it is interesting to point out in this respect that according to recent studies the presence of MG enhances the lubricating properties of the biofuel [25,26]. So far this process is being developed not only with PPL but also with some microbial lipases, both in free and immobilized forms [19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

Recent developments in microbial oils production: a possible alternative to vegetable oils for biodiesel without competition with human food?

“…This reaction also simplifies the downstream processing of the process because both the products of the reaction (fatty acid alkyl ester and triacetin) can be utilized as biodiesel . Verdugo et al (2010) have also developed a method for the integration of glycerol into the composition of biofuel via pig pancreatic lipase catalysed transesterification of sunflower oil. The greatest advantage with the methods involving integration of glycerol into the composition of biofuels is that they involve no impurities to be removed from the final mixture and reduce the negative environmental impact of the process.…”