Enzymatic Glycerolysis of Soybean Oil

ABSTIWCT: Enzymatic glycerolysis of soybean oil was studied. O i the nine lipases that were tested in the initial screening, Pseudomonas sp. resulted in the highest yield of monoglyc-erides. Lipase from Pseudomonas sp. was iuriher studied for the influence of temperature, thermal stability, enzymeloil ratio, and glycerolloil ratio. A full factorial optimization approach was performed. The following conditions were tested over the spec-ified ranges: temperature (3&70°C), thermal stability 13&70"C!, enz).me/oil ratio (0.05-0.2 g enzyme/lO g oil), glyc-erolioil ratio (1:l-3:l glycerolioil molar ratio) and 1 h reaction time. The stability of the enzyme at the reaction temperature was also incorporated as a separate variable. At temperatures above 40°C enzyme denaturation offset the higher activity. The optimal conditions were selected to be the basis ior a continu-ous process: 40'C, a glycerolioil molar ratio o i 2:1, and an en