The increasing demand pressures the
vegetable oil industry to develop
novel refining methods. Degumming with type C phospholipases (PLCs)
is a green technology and provides extra oil. However, natural PLCs
are not active under the harsh conditions used in oil refining plants,
requiring additional unit operations. These upfront capital expenditures
and the associated operational costs hinder the adoption of this method.
Here, we present a process based on ChPLC, a synthetic PLC obtained
by consensus sequence design, possessing superior thermal stability
and catalytic properties. Using ChPLC, crude soybean oil degumming
was completed at 80 °C in 30 min, the temperature and residence
time imposed by the design of existing oil refining plants. Remarkably,
an extra yield of oil of 2% was obtained using 60% of the dose recommended
for PLCs marketed today, saving upfront investments and reducing the
operational cost of degumming. A techno-economic analysis indicates
that, for medium size plants, ChPLC reduces the overall cost of soybean
oil enzymatic degumming by 58%. The process presented here facilitates
the implementation of enzymatic technologies to oil producers, regardless
of their processing capacity, bringing potential annual benefits in
the billion-dollar range for the global economy.