Development of an industrial sustainable process for wax esters production: enzyme immobilization, process optimization, and plant simulation

Abstract

BACKGROUND: As a result of the ban on whaling, there has been a shortage of spermaceti, a natural product with applications in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. A green and sustainable process for the biocatalytic synthesis of a wax ester mixture analogue to natural spermaceti is presented in this paper.RESULTS: Immobilization of Candida antarctica lipase B by covalent binding to Purolite® Lifetech™ ECR8285 allowed for an immobilized derivative with 124.5 mg protein/g support (69.3% protein immobilization yield) that maintains 100% of its enzymatic activity after 12 months of cold storage and presents negligible loses of activity after 9 consecutive reaction cycles. The optimization of the synthesis process in a batch reactor resulted in conditions that, at 70 °C, 350 rpm, and 1.25% w/w of biocatalyst, achieved a conversion of 97% after 1 h of reaction. The simulation of a spermaceti production plant was carried out using the process simulation software aspenONE suite v10. The plant was designed for a continuous operation during 9 h per day, with a reactor of 20.25 L of working volume and a residence time of 1 h. The production of this plant would be 173.25 kg spermaceti/day, with a product purity of 99.55%. CONCLUSION:The main novelty of this work is the design of a spermaceti production plant, using the most sustainable methodologies and resulting in a product with exceptional characteristics and minimal waste generation. Moreover, a new lipase immobilized derivative is also described. The good values of sustainability indicators point to the viability of its industrial implementation.

Integrated Continuous-Flow Production of Wax Esters Combining Whole-Cell and In Vitro Biocatalysis

“…PMI values for the overall cascade reaction and lipase-catalyzed esterification were found to be 21,746 and 2,038 kg/kg, respectively. When considering only reactants (i.e., fatty acids and fatty alcohols), the PMI of esterification was only 1.79, which was comparable to data reported for solvent-free reactions (PMI = 1.05) . This suggested that the resource-intensive step was the fatty alcohol production.…”

“…When considering only reactants (i.e., fatty acids and fatty alcohols), the PMI of esterification was only 1.79, which was comparable to data reported for solvent-free reactions (PMI = 1.05). 21 This suggested that the resource-intensive step was the fatty alcohol production.…”

Esters in the Food and Cosmetic Industries: An Overview of the Reactors Used in Their Biocatalytic Synthesis

“…To incorporate a greater number of studies, the search parameters were adjusted by removing the term “cosmetic”, resulting in 62 papers, of which 43 studies met the established criteria (tank reactors with a volume superior than 50 mL and cosmetic applications). Table 5 [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 ] compiles these papers. The esters synthesized fall into these categories: emollient esters [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 65 , 69 , 70 , 71 , ...…”

“…Table 5 [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 ] compiles these papers. The esters synthesized fall into these categories: emollient esters [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 65 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 73 , 74 , 79 , 80 ,…”

“…According to Table 5 , among 43 papers reviewed, 36 report the use of commercial lipases from different companies: Novozymes [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 68 , 70 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 82 , 88 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 96 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 101 ], Fermenta Biotech Ltd. (Thane, India) [ 71 , 81 , 83 , 84 , 86 , 89 , 95 ], and Purolite (King of Prussia, PA, USA) [ 80 ]. In five articles, researchers describe the use of an in-lab immobilized lipase [ 61 , 69 , 85 , 94 , 100 , 102 ], and only two studies involve microbial cells with lipase activity [ 67 , 87 ]. It is evident that commercial immobilized enzymes come with a high cost.…”