Performance of Rhizomucor Miehei in Amidation Reaction for Fatty Monoethanolamide Synthesis Based on Distillated Palm Fatty Acid

Abstract

Lipase is a type of biocatalyst that can work with substrates of lipid classes. Rhizomucor meihei is of lipase enzymes classes, that can react specifically with Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) forming fatty monoethanolamide. Monoethanolamide surfactants are compounds which are widely used in the cosmetics industry as emulsifiers. Monoethanolamide having OH- groups, so it is easily soluble in water. Monoethanolamide can be produced from fatty acids with monoethanolamide using alkaline catalyst or a biocatalyst. Production using chemical catalysts will involve high reaction temperature reaches 120°C-150°C, while the reactions involving biocatalysts are like enzyme can be done at a relatively low temperature. This research was conducted by using amination reaction with 3 independent variables i.e. amination temperature at the level of 30°C-70°C, the mole ratio of PFAD: Monetanolamina at (1:1) - (1:20) and ratio of enzyme at 0.05%-0.5% (w/w) and reaction time of 4 hours. The research results show that the Rhizomucor meihei give the best performance at the level of temperature 60°C, ratio mole (1:4) and the ratio of enzyme 0.2% (w/w) with a conversion product of 86.25%.