Enzymatic Synthesis of Monolaurin

Abstract

The aim of this study was to produce monolaurin utilizing a commercial immobilized lipase (Lipozyme IM-20; Novo Nordisk, Bagsvaerd, Denmark) through the direct esterification of lauric acid and glycerol in a solvent-free system. The influence of fatty acid/glycerol molar ratio, temperature, and Lipozyme (IM-20) concentration on the molar fraction of monolaurin were determined using an experimental design. The best conditions employed were 55 degrees C, lauric acid/glycerol molar ratio of 1.0, and 3.0% (w/w) enzyme concentration. The final product, obtained after 6 h of reaction, was 45.5% monolaurin, 26.8% dilaurin, 3.1% trilaurin, and 24.6% lauric acid. The reusability of the enzyme was also studied.

Synthesis and Antibacterial Activity 1-Monolaurin

“…Monolaurin has a promising antimicrobial activity but the compound is not easy to be synthesized and relatively expensive. The attempts to synthesize monolaurin has been done by Pareira et al, 10 and Langone et al, 11 by esterification reaction of lauric acid and glycerol using Lipozyme IM 20 catalyst but the yield is still low (26.8%). Review article written by Nitbani et al, (2015) 12 stated that, the successful application of MCM-41 hybrid materials as the catalysts in the esterification of glycerol with either lauric acid or oleic acid.…”

One-Step Synthesis of 4-Octyl Itaconate through the Structure Control of Lipase

“…Pereira et al reported that an increase of lauric acid enhanced the production of di-and trilaurin in the cascade esterification of glycerol and lauric acid. 27 Intriguingly, lipasemediated cascade esterification in this work showed an inverse phenomenon, where more octanol resulted in less DOI and yielded a higher MER (Figure 1d). We assume that excessive octanol may act as a solvent to influence cascade esterification.…”

Enzymatic esterification of lauric acid to give monolaurin in a microreactor

“…Furthermore, the conversion rate of LA can be calculated from equation (2). The remaining LA was determined by GC using the calibration curve method Finally, the selectivity was calculated from equation (3). The selectivity for monolaurin was defined as the ratio of the formed monolaurin (in moles) with respect to the converted starting material (in moles) Selectivityfor monolaurin GC yield Conversion rateof lauricacid = × ×100%…”

“…Methods to obtain monolaurin include hydrolysis/alcoholysis/glycerolysis and esterification. 3–15 The reactions can be catalyzed either by enzymes or chemical catalysts. The reported chemical catalysts for esterification are p -TSA, 14 zeolite Y, 13 SBA-15, 8 MCM-41, 4 and so on.…”

“…12 However, enzymatic syntheses are mainly focused on producing diacylglycerol via glycerolysis, 15 or esterification 17 between monoglycerides and fatty acids, and most reports on the enzymatic synthesis of glycerol monolaurin describe low yields (⩽40%). 3,6 Only one report on the biocatalytic synthesis of monoacyl glycerides gave excellent yield (100%) and selectivity (100%), in which ionic liquids were used as reaction media. 11 The enzymatic synthesis of monolaurin is a multiphase reaction, and mass transfer is one important factor affecting the apparent reaction rate of the enzymatic reaction as known.…”