Biodiesel, chemically defined as monoalkyl esters of long chain fatty acids, are derived from renewable feed stocks like vegetable oils and animal fats. It is produced by both batch and continuous transesterification processes in which, oil or fat is reacted with a monohydric alcohol in the presence of a catalyst. The conventional method of producing biodiesel involves acid and base catalysts to form fatty acid alkyl esters. Downstream processing costs and environmental problems associated with biodiesel production and byproducts recovery have led to the search for alternative production methods and alternative substrates. Enzymatic reactions involving lipases can be an excellent alternative to produce biodiesel through a process commonly referred to as alcoholysis, a form of transesterification reaction or through an interesterification reaction. In order to increase the cost effectiveness of the process, the enzymes are immobilized using a suitable matrix. The use of immobilized lipases and whole cells may lower the overall cost, while presenting less downstream processing problems. Main focus of this paper is to discuss the important parameters that affect the biodiesel yield, various immobilization techniques employed, mechanisms and kinetics of transesterification reaction and the recent advances in continuous transesterification processes.

No abstract

Non-edible oils represent one of the most viable alternative feed stocks for the production of large volumes of biodiesel at cheaper cost in tropical countries. The objective of the present study is to investigate the ability of the immobilized whole cells of Rhizopus oryzae MTCC 262 to catalyze the biodiesel production from karanja oil in n-hexane system. Response surface methodology was employed to evaluate the effects of synthesis parameters, such as molar ratio of oil to alcohol, reaction temperature and reaction time on percentage biodiesel (methyl esters) yield. Transesterification was performed in shake flasks containing immobilized cells in the reaction mixture with 10% oil weight of n-hexane. The quadratic effects of molar ratio of oil to alcohol and reaction time proved to be the significant at 1% and 5% levels, respectively. The optimum synthesis conditions were found to be: molar ratio of oil to alcohol 1:2.73, reaction temperature 41.39°C and reaction time 73.97 h. Biodiesel yield (methyl ester) was 75.98 (wt.%) under the optimal conditions and the subsequent verification experiments with biodiesel yield of 78.0 (wt.%) confirmed the validity of the proposed model.