Towards sustainable biofuel production: Design of a new biocatalyst to biodiesel synthesis from waste oil and commercial ethanol

GABRIEL ORLANDO FERRERO; HERNAN JAVIER ROJAS; CARLOS E. ARGAÑARA; GRISELDA EIMER

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Lugar: Tennessee; Año: 2016 p. 495 - 503

0959-6526

The sustainable technologies to produce alternative energies as biofuel with focus on the harnessing ofrenewable sources and waste biomass is gradually gaining ground. Although the biodiesel is a veryattractive biofuel its production from vegetable oils competes with the feed generation with theconsequent socio-economic costs involved. Therefore, the reuse of waste oils appears as an alternativehighly promising. However the high content of free fatty acid and water in this raw material difficult itsuse in the conventional processes employed in the actuality. In this work, we successfully develop hybridcatalysts based in Pseudomonas fluorescens lipase immobilized over Ca and Na modified mesoporousSBA-15 supports. The physic-chemical properties of the supports were determined by Small-angle X-rayScattering (SAXS), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM),Infrared Spectroscopy (IR), Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP) and N2adsorption measurements. These hybrid catalysts were capable to process waste oils, and even, commercialethanol (96%) obtained from a fermentative process An optimum activity, with around 90% ofFAEE yield, was achieved with lipase immobilized on Ca modified SBA-15 using 4% of water respect to oil,1:4 oil/ethanol ratio, 400 mg/g of enzyme immobilized, at 37 C and 180 oscillations/min. This catalystcould contribute to development of a more environmentally and economically viable process to biodieselproduction.