Valorization of lignin is essential for the economic viability of the biorefinery concept. For example, the enhancement of lignin hydrophobicity by chemical esterification is known to improve its miscibility in apolar polyolefin matrices, thereby helping the production of bio-based composites. To this end and due to its many reactive hydroxyl groups, lignin is a challenging macromolecular subst...

Biodiesel is considered a promising replacement to petroleum-derived diesel. Using oils extracted from agricultural crops competes with their use as food and cannot realistically satisfy the global demand of diesel-fuel requirements. On the other hand, microalgae, which have a much higher oil yield per hectare, compared to oil crops, appear to be a source that has the potential to completely re...

Biodiesel, produced by the transesterification of vegetable oils or animal fats with methanol, is a promising alternative diesel fuel. In this study, a series of strong base anion resins with different basicity, pore structure, degree of cross-linking, and particle size were investigated as heterogeneous catalysts for the transesterification of soybean oil with methanol. A trace amount of CH3ON...

Nano MgO has been synthesized by hydration and dehydration method by modifies the commercial MgO. The prepared MgO had been investigated as a heterogeneous base catalyst for transesterification process for biodiesel production using palm oil. TGA, FT-IR and XRD results obtained from this study lie each other and proved in the formation of nano MgO from decomposition of Mg(OH)2. This study prove...

(R)-1-Chloro-3-(1-naphthyloxy)-2-propanol, which is the key intermediate of (S)-propranolol, was successfully prepared via enantioselective transesterification catalyzed by lipase under ultrasound irradiation. Compared with conventional shaking, the enzyme activity and enantioselectivity were dramatically increased under ultrasound exposure. Effects of various reaction conditions on the synthet...

Liquid fuels have been used for many years as the most dominant and basic fuel for motor engines. However, declining fossil fuel resources as well as the tendency for developing new renewable biofuels have shifted the interest of the society towards finding novel alternative fuel sources. Biodiesel (monoalkyl esters of long-chain fatty acids) has a great potential as an alternative diesel fuel....

Waste sardine oil, a byproduct of fish industry, was employed as a low cost feedstock for biodiesel production. It has relatively high free fatty acid (FFA) content (32 mg KOH/g of oil). Lipase enzyme immobilized on activated carbon was used as the catalyst for the transesterification reaction. Process variables viz. reaction temperature, water content and oil to methanol molar ratio were optim...

In order to study the effect of metal ions on lipase activity, hydrolytic and transesterification activities of Candida rugosa lipase were investigated in presence of alkali (Na⁺ and K⁺), alkaline earth (Ca⁺² and Ba⁺²) and transition (Cr⁺³, Fe⁺³, Co⁺², Cu⁺² and Ni⁺²) metal ions. Maximum enhancement in hydrolytic activity of lipase was observed by Ca⁺², and in transesterification activity by Cr⁺...

In recent times, biotechnological applications of microbial lipases in synthesis of many organic molecules have rapidly increased in non-aqueous media. Microbial lipases are the 'working horses' in biocatalysis and have been extensively studied when their exceptionally high stability in non-aqueous media has been discovered. Stability of lipases in organic solvents makes them commercially feasi...