Research

Enzymatic transesterification of Jatropha oil

Annapurna Kumari , Paramita Mahapatra , Vijay Kumar Garlapati and Rintu Banerjee

Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal 721302, India

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Biotechnology for Biofuels 2009, 2:1doi:10.1186/1754-6834-2-1

Published:	14 January 2009

Abstract

Background

Transesterification of Jatropha oil was carried out in t-butanol solvent using immobilized lipase from Enterobacter aerogenes. The presence of t-butanol significantly reduced the negative effects caused by both methanol and glycerol. The effects of various reaction parameters on transesterification of Jatropha oil were studied.

Results

The maximum yield of biodiesel was 94% (of which 68% conversion was achieved with respect to methyl oleate) with an oil:methanol molar ratio of 1:4, 50 U of immobilized lipase/g of oil, and a t-butanol:oil volume ratio of 0.8:1 at 55°C after 48 h of reaction time. There was negligible loss in lipase activity even after repeated use for seven cycles.

Conclusion

To the best of our knowledge this is the first report on biodiesel synthesis using immobilized E. aerogenes lipase.