A synergetic whole-cell biocatalyst for biodiesel production

Abstract

As an alternative, biodegradable and nonpolluting transportation fuel, biodiesel has recently attracted considerable attention. Comparing with conventional chemical catalysis and supercritical methanol, enzymatic transesterification for biodiesel is one of the most promising strategies due to its gentle reaction conditions, environmentally friendly nature, oil feedstock permission and easy product separation. However, the two major obstacles of high cost and easy inactivation of lipases remain to retard their wide commercialization. To overcome these bottlenecks of enzymatic catalysis biodiesel production, we herein report a novel economical biocatalyst by co-displaying two synergistic lipases, Candida antarctica lipase B and Thermomyces lanuginosus lipase, on the surface of Phichia pastoris cell to markedly cut down the cost of biodiesel production. Results showed that the co-displayed whole-cells were promising biocatalysts in biodiesel production with high biodiesel conversion (ca. 95.4%) and good operational stability, which suggests biodiesel catalyzed by the co-displayed whole-cell catalysts should be a promising alternative technology for biodiesel future development.