Lipase catalysed hydrolysis of non-conventional oil resources: kinetics & optimization study

Abstract

Essential fatty acids (EFAs) from non-edible oil resources have been in light for last two decades due to their propitious effects in the prevention of diseases and human nutrition. Omega-6 fatty acids like linoleic acid, in the leaves, seeds and flowers of tobacco and in the seeds of pumpkin seed oil have been produced by chemical methods for their use in various purposes. Now-a-days enzymatic methods have been emphasised in industries and R & D sectors for oil hydrolysis to produce fatty acids to fulfil day-by-day increasing demands and to promote environment friendly methods. Lipases, an enzyme that are popularly being used
for catalysing oil hydrolysis have replaced chemical methods. Enzymes like lipase from Candida rugosa, because of its structural individuality, inhabit non-specificity towards a wide range of fatty acids of different chain length are being utilized for this purpose. These useful fatty acids can fulfil the increasing demands as well as can be utilized in oleochemical industries and other industries like cosmetics, as food supplements in nutrition, in manufacture of paints and varnishes etc.
In this work, focus has been made on existing method of hydrolysis of some nonedible oil resources like pumpkin and tobacco seed oil and possibility of enzymatic hydrolysis of the same to produce linoleic acid. Optimization of process variables for the production of fatty acids from lipase catalysed hydrolysis of pumpkin and tobacco seed oil has been explored in this study. In lipase catalysed hydrolysis of pumpkin seed oil, temperature, buffer and enzyme concentration has been found to be significant by Response Surface Methodology (RSM) while temperature causes considerable effect in linoleic acid production with speed of agitation having no significant effect. The key mutual interaction has been observed for temperature with pH & enzyme concentration and pH & enzyme concentration.