Improved biodiesel production from sludge palm oil catalyzed by a low-cost liquid lipase under low-input process conditions

Jun Mann Loh, Amelia,, Wail Gourich, Chien Lye Chew, Cher Pin Song and Eng-Seng Chan

Renewable Energy, 2021, vol. 177, issue C, 348-358

Abstract: Sludge palm oil is a by-product produced as a result of oil loss into waste streams during the palm oil milling process. It is non-edible, inexpensive and abundantly available, thus making it an attractive feedstock for biodiesel production. However, it contains high contents of water and free fatty acids, rendering the conventional alkali-catalyzed process unsuitable. Therefore, this research aimed to improve the production of biodiesel from sludge palm oil using a low-cost liquid lipase (Eversa® Transform 2.0) produced from a genetically modified Aspergillus oryzae. The activity of the liquid lipase was determined to be 9600 IU mL−1. We performed the reaction using low-input process conditions with only 0.2 wt% enzyme concentration and 5:1 methanol-to-oil molar ratio at a low operating temperature of 45 °C. Under an optimum stirring speed of 750 rpm, a crude biodiesel with a high ester content of approximately 94 wt% could be produced. Additionally, the crude glycerol produced has a higher purity compared to that produced via a chemical-catalyzed process. Overall, an economical and sustainable enzymatic process for the conversion of sludge palm oil into high quality biodiesel and glycerol has been demonstrated in this study.

Keywords: Sludge palm oil; Fatty acid methyl ester; Biodiesel; Lipase; Enzyme (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148121008211
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:177:y:2021:i:c:p:348-358

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2021.05.138

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().