Kinetics of enzyme-catalyzed alcoholysis of soybean oil in n-hexane.

This work investigated the production of fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) from soybean oil using n-hexane as solvent and two commercial lipases as catalysts, Novozym 435 and Lipozyme IM. A Taguchi experimental design was adopted considering the variables temperature (35-65 degrees C), addition of water (0-10 wt/wt%), enzyme (5-20 wt/wt%) concentration, and oil-to-ethanol molar ratio (1:3-1:10). It is shown that complete conversion in FAEE is achieved for some experimental conditions. The effects of process variables on reaction conversion and kinetics of the enzymatic reactions are presented for all experimental conditions investigated in the factorial design.