Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Biodiesel is a fatty acid alkyl esters (FAAE) obtained by transesterification reaction of triglycerides. This conversion can be done by chemical, physical or enzymatic way. The production of biodiesel by enzyme catalyses has been considering a viable process although it isn’t currently used in industry. This work aimed the selection of thermopile fungi able to produce transesterifying lipase in solid state fermentation (SSF) and use then to produce biodiesel. It was used a mixture 10g of sugar cane bagasse, 2.5 g of soya oil and 25 mL of mineral nutrient solution as a culture medium and a polypropylene package as a bioreactor. Among 34 strains tested, Thermomucor indicae- seudaticae N31, Rhizomucor pusillus and Myceliophora sp M7.7 produced the higher lipase activity (from 2 to 6 U g-1). These fungi were cultivated on fragments of Luffa cyllindrica submerged in meat peptone, soya oil and mineral nutrients mixture. After myceliation these fragments were used for determination of lipase and transesterification activities. It was obtained 303, 108 and 155 U mL-1 of lipase and 30, 14 and 20 U g-1 of the esterification activities for T. indicae- seudaticae N31, R. pusillus and Myceliophora sp M7.7 respectively. The yield in biodiesel using soya oil was 80, 50 and 70 % respectively. It was concluded that hypha immobilization is a promissory approach for biodiesel production by enzyme catalyses.