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Transesterification of used vegetable oil using immobilized lipase enzyme

A.Arumugam, M.Saravanan, V.Alagesan, V.Ponnusami

Lipase immobilized on Santa Barbara Acid-15 (SBA 15) produced from economic precursor obtained fromsugarcane leaf ashwas used as a catalyst for methanolysis of used vegetable oil. Here, highly ordered mesoporous silica has been prepared from sugarcane leaf ash by template assisted method. BET surface area, primary pore size and pore volume of SBA– 15 were 587 m2/g, 7 nm and 0.8 cm3/g respectively. Mesoporous silica had shown percentage immobilization of 48.92%and specific enzyme activity of 8.6 U/ mg. The optimal conditions for processing 5 g of used vegetable oil are: 100mg of immobilized lipase, 8:1molar methanol to oil ratio and a temperature of 40 °C. 96.5 % yield of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) was obtained under optimized conditions.