The application of membrane technology to the enzymatic production of specific structured lipids has been investigated in this work. Membrane screening was carried out in a membrane diffusion cell. Twenty-six flat membranes of different materials were tested using rapeseed oil and capric acid. The suitable membranes were selected in terms of higher fatty acid and lower rapeseed oil permeation rates. The stability of membranes and the effect of fatty acid chain length on effluent fluxes were also investigated. Reaction experiments were carried out in a membrane reactor between medium-chain triacylglycerols and n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) from fish oil. Lipozyme IM was used as the biocatalyst. The incorporation of PUFA into medium-chain triacylglycerols was increased by about 15% in a PUFA 90-h reaction by simultaneous separation of the released medium-chain fatty acids, compared to no separation under the same reaction conditions. It has thus clearly been demonstrated that membrane-assisted separation improved the incorporation of acyl donors into oils beyond the reaction equilibrium defined by the original substrate concentration.
MATERIALS AND METHODSSubstrates. MCT, containing 60.0 mol% caprylic acid and 40.0 mol% capric acid by analysis, was purchased from Grü-nau GmbH (Illertissen, Germany). Refined rapeseed oil was a donation from Aarhus Oliefabrik A/S (Aarhus, Denmark). The fatty acid composition of the rapeseed oil (mol%) was: C 16:0 , 6.0; C 16:1 , 0.2; C 18:0 , 1.6; C 18:1n-9 , 58.8; C 18:2n-6 , 21.9; C 18:3n-3 , 10.0; and C 20:1n-9 , 0.6. Capric acid was purchased from Henkel Kimianika Sdn. Bhd.; purity: 99.6 mol%, Selangor, Malaysia. Oleic acid (87% purity) was purchased from Riedel-de Haen (Seelze, Germany). An eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) concentrate (mixture of 35% EPA and 25% DHA) and a DHA product (85% purity) were donated by Pronova Biocare A.S. (Sandefjord, Norway). Lipozyme IM (Novo Nordisk A/S, Bagsvaerd, Denmark) consists of an sn-1,3-specific lipase from Rhizomucor miehei, immobilized on a macroporous ion exchange resin (water content 3.3%). All solvents and reagents for analyses were of analytical grade.Membranes. G-10 and Desal-5 were donated by Desal (Euro/Africa Office, Hauptstrasse, Switzerland). Other membranes were donated by Dow Denmark Separation Systems, (Nakskov, Denmark). The details of the membranes are listed in Table 1. GR, FS, and all microfiltration membranes were obtained in the wet state, saturated with water or an aqueous solution, and the membranes were soaked in ethanol before use. The rest of the membranes were tested in their dry state.Membrane reactor. The reactor is depicted in Figure 1. A 1036 X. XU ET AL.
FIG. 2.The typical relationship between the free fatty acid (FFA) content (wt%) in rapeseed oil (Chamber B) and permeation time. Conditions: membrane, ETNA10A (Dow Denmark Separation Systems, Nakskov, Denmark); temperature, 60°C; and skin layer side of membrane facing Chamber B (rapeseed oil side).