Enzymatic production of green epoxides from fatty acids present in soapstock in a microchannel bioreactor

Sustainable catalytic epoxidation of biorenewable terpene feedstocks using H2O2 as an oxidant in flow microreactors

“…with previous reports where H2O2 has been used as an oxidant in catalytic flow epoxidation reactions of alkene substrates that are liquid at ambient temperatures (See Table 1, Entries 1-8 for comparison). [22][23][24][25][26][27][28] The smaller reaction volumes, static mixing channels and heat exchangers present in the microreactors result in highly efficient mass transfer and excellent temperature control in these flow epoxidation reactions. This means that it should be much safer to scale-up VPTC/H2O2 catalysed flow epoxidation reactions, since it should avoid dangerous thermal runaways that can be difficult to control in large-scale batch epoxidation reactions.…”

“…19 The potential benefits of carrying out catalytic epoxidation reactions using H2O2 as a an oxidant in flow reactors are well established (for literature examples, see Table 1, Entries 1-7), including: excellent mass and heat transfer; reduced reaction times; more efficient temperature control; improved safety profiles; and the ability to telescope reactions to generate epoxide derivatives. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] Therefore, the ability to carry out continuous VPTC/H2O2 mediated epoxidations of monoterpenes (and other types of alkenes) in flow reactor systems is desirable, since it would enable this catalytic system to be used safely for large scale epoxide manufacturing. Consequently, we now describe that preformed VPTC/H2O2 systems can be used for the flow epoxidation of biorenewable terpene feedstocks in inexpensive continuous flow microreactors containing static mixing units, with these simple flow protocols also applicable for epoxidation of other types of alkene substrate.…”

Enzymatic Methods for the Manipulation and Valorization of Soapstock from Vegetable Oil Refining Processes

“…The enzymatic epoxidation of the unsaturated fatty acids of soapstock was investigated by Mashhadi et al [72] in a solvent-free system, using a commercial C. rugosa lipase in a stirred-tank bioreactor and in a micro-channel bioreactor. The results indicate that only about 24% of the theoretical oxirane oxygen content was experimentally obtained in the stirred-tank bioreactor when operated in the batch mode.…”

“…The epoxides synthesis proposed by Mashhadi et al in 2018 [72], already introduced in Section 3.3, had implications concerning process issues. In the report, the epoxidation reaction was first tested in a stirred-tank reactor (a 50 mL cylindrical glass reactor): in a batch mode by adding all of the required hydrogen peroxide at the beginning of the reaction, and under semi-batch conditions by adding hydrogen peroxide dropwise at a rate of 0.3 mL/min.…”

Technology development of fatty acids obtaining from soapstok using saponification

“…The main components of soapstock (waste of alkaline oil refining) are fats (up to 70 %), fatty acids (up to 30 %) and their sodium soaps, phospholipids, unsaponifiable and waxy substances, dyes. Depending on the fatty acid composition of the raw material and the concentration of the alkali solution used in the neutralization technology, the composition and In [9], scientific results on the esterification of fatty acids derived from soapstock, in which the content of fatty acids was 65.5 % and the content of sulfuric acid 10400 mg/kg are presented. In order to reduce the sulfuric acid content, soapstock was pre-washed with sodium hydroxide solution, which increased the yield and improved the quality of methyl esters.…”