Lipase-catalyzed production of monoglycerides in compressed propane and AOT surfactant

This work reports the production of monoacylglycerols (MAGs) from olive oil in pressurized propane as solvent medium. For this purpose a commercial immobilized lipase (Novozym 435) was employed as catalyst and sodium (bis-2-ethyl-hexyl) sulfosuccinate (Aerosol-OT or AOT) as surfactant. The experiments were conducted in the batch mode keeping constant the glycerol to oil molar ratio of 2:1, propane to substrates mass ratio of 4:1, enzyme concentration (by weight of substrates) at 10 wt%, and agitation of 600 rpm, varying the temperature, pressure, and AOT concentration. Results showed that lipase-catalyzed glycerolysis in compressed propane might be a potential route to conventional methods, as high contents of reaction products, MAG and DAG, were achieved at mild temperature and pressure conditions (30 °C and 30 bar) with a low solvent to substrates mass ratio (4:1) in short-reaction times (1 h).