Enzymatic Production of Monoacylglycerols with Camellia Oil by the Glycerolysis Reaction

Three commercial immobilized lipases, Lipozyme RM IM, Lipozyme TL IM and Novozym 435, were screened for the production of monoacylglycerols (MAG) by glycerolysis of camellia oil in a solvent medium of tert-butyl alcohol. Novozym 435 showed the best performance and was selected to catalyze the glycerolysis reaction. Different reaction conditions for the batch reaction, substrate mole ratio, substrate concentration and temperature, were investigated. The optimal reaction conditions were determined as 6:1 mole ratio of glycerol to camellia oil at 40% (w/v) of substrate concentration in tert-butyl alcohol at a reaction temperature of 50 °C. Under these optimal conditions, the conversion rate of camellia oil was 98.7% (10 h), and the mixture of acylglycerols contained 82.0% of MAG. A packed-bed reactor (PBR) system with 4.5 g Novozym 435 was employed in continuous production. The resulting product mixture of acylglycerols contained 80.74% of MAG and was obtained at a flow rate of 0.25 mL/min of substrates. The long-term operation of the PBR system gave an average productivity of 0.698 kg MAG/(kg enzyme h) after 38 days of operation.