Enzimatic processes development for oil degumming residues utilization

PISARELLO, MA. LAURA; MAQUIRRIAIN, MAIRA ALEJADRA; ROSSI, VALENTINA; QUERINI, CARLOS A.

Conferencia; 2nd RCN Conference on Pan American Biofuels and Bioenergy Sustainability 2016; 2016

The oleaginous crop sector of Argentina is one of the biggest and more efficient of theWorld, and is a very important part of the country economy. The oil seeds industryproduces as primary products the vegetable oil and the meal, and has incorporated in thelast decade the production of biodiesel in large scale. The vegetable oil processing, eitherfor edible uses or biodiesel production, requires the separation of phospholipids. This stepis commonly known as degumming. The ´gums´ represents approximately 5% of thetreated oil, and therefore is an important by-product in an oil industry. It is very importantto find applications for this product that typically contains 30% of oil, 40% ofphospholipids, and 30% of water.Today, this by-product is often a problem due to the lack of market and applications inwhich it can be used. Therefore, itâ? ?s an important issue to find new routes in which thisstream can be transformed in an added-value product. It is known that it is possible to obtain free fatty acids from the degumming residues byhydrolysis using a strong acid, such as sulphuric acid. However, this treatment is extremelyaggressive and leads to the generation of effluents that are difficult to treat, and also, gasesemissions and corrosion throughout the process. This is a severe environmental problem.One alternative is the use of enzymes, such as the phospholipases, that selectively breakcertain bonds in the phospholipid molecule.In this work, enzymatic catalysis is used to transform the phospholipids present in the gumsby hydrolysis, leading to the production of materials that can be transformed in biodiesel.The objective of this work is to develop enzymatic processes to treat the degummingresidues, recovering the occluded oil in the emulsion and the fatty matter present in thephospholipid, either as fatty acids, or mono and di-glycerides. These compounds are thenused to obtain biofuels or in the oleochemistry industry.The study involved a systematic search for solvents in order to fluidize the emulsionminimizing the addition of the chosen solvent. The raw material was fully characterized,and reactions catalyzed by phospholipases A and C were carried out. The effects ofenzymes concentration, temperature and solvents were addressed. Products werecharacterized by GC, HPLC, FTIR, P analysis by XRF and colorimetric spectrometry, andCHON elemental analysis.It was found that it is possible to obtain a mixture of fatty acids and di-glycerides that couldbe transformed to high quality biodiesel.