Nannochloropsis salina was cultured batch-wise to evaluate the potential of the alga to produce biodiesel. The cells were harvested at the end of the exponential growth phase when the concentration was 18 x 10(6) cells/mL culture. The growth estimated as dry weight from this cell number was (3.8 +/- 0.7) mg/L. The lipid and triglyceride contents were 40% and 12% on a dry weight basis, respectiv...

Biodiesel is an alternative diesel fuel made from renewable biological resources. During the process of biodiesel production, lipase-catalyzed transesterification is a crucial step. However, current techniques using methanol as acyl acceptor have lower enzymatic activity; this limits the application of such techniques in large-scale biodiesel production. Furthermore, the lipid feedstock of curr...

Biodiesel is an alternative source of energy in diesel engines in its neat form or as a blend with conventional diesel fuel. The raw feedstock costs represent a lot of the overall biodiesel production cost. Therefore, the employment of waste oils or non-edible oils (which do not compete with edible oils) as feedstock for biodiesel production are presented as the best alternative. However, the p...

Heterogeneous catalysts are receiving more importance for the transesterification of triglycerides present in any oils or fats to produce biodiesel. They are reusable, environmentally benign, could give high quality of products, and more effective than acid catalysts and enzymes for biodiesel production. Recently, heterogeneous catalysts derived from both waste industrial and biological resourc...

The present study deals with the enzymatic synthesis of biodiesel by transesterification of Jatropha oil (Jatropha curcas L.) with ethanol in a solvent-free system. Seven commercial lipase preparations immobilized by covalent attachment on epoxy-polysiloxane-polyvinyl alcohol composite (epoxy-SiO2-PVA) were tested as biocatalysts. Among them, immobilized lipases from Pseudomonas fluorescens (li...

Title of Document: BUTANOL PRODUCTION FROM GLYCEROL BY Clostridium pasteurianum IN DEFINED CULTURE MEDIAA PHENOTYPIC APPROACH. David Leonardo Ramos Sanchez, Master of Science, 2009 Directed By: Associate Professor Nam Sun Wang Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering ABSTRACT The fluctuations in oil prices have stimulated the production of renewable biofuels, in particular the produc...

Cost effective production of biofuels depends critically on feedstock cost and availability. As such, volatile fatty acids (VFAs) can play an important role in advancing sustainable biofuel production since they can be derived from low cost feedstock including gases and municipal solid waste. To this end, we studied fermentations of the oleaginous microbe Yarrowia lipolytica engineered for lipi...

The properties of biodiesel as renewable fuel, as well as the problems associated with its conventional production processes are outlined. A novel sustainable process based on catalytic reactive distillation is proposed as alternative. The pros and cons of manufacturing biodiesel via fatty acid esterification using metal oxides as solid acid catalysts are investigated. The experimental findings...

biodiesel fuel, which is produced by transesterification reaction between alcohol and vegetable oil/animal fat is proposed as a clean alternative to petro diesel fuel. today, one of the new technologies to produce biodiesel is using ultrasonic energy that makes production faster, with improved quality and less expensive. various factors that affect the design of ultrasonic reactors are ratio of...

background: lipase is an enzyme with immense application potential. ester synthesis by lipase catalysis in organic media is an area of key industrial relevance. enzymatic preparations with traits that cater to the needs of this function are hence being intensely researched. objective: the objectives of the study were to immobilize the lipase from bacillus sp. ps35 by cross-linking and adsorptio...