The influence of free fatty acid intermediate on biodiesel production from soybean oil by whole cell biocatalyst

The whole cell of lipase-producing Rhizopus oryzae was employed as biocatalyst for transesterification of soybean oil containing oleic acid. The free fatty acid (FFA) intermediate, playing an important role in the kinetics of transesterification of soybean oil, was thoroughly investigated and characterized. The conversion was more than 97% at the initial FFA content of 5.5%. A high content of FFA could protect the lipase from denaturation. The 34.6 percent of FFA with the optimal 26-mg mL−1 methanol resulted in a specific reaction rate of 420 mg h−1g-dry cell−1. In addition, the methanol/FFA ratio at 0.83–1.7 provides a good indication of the fatty acid methyl esters conversions for different initial FFA contents. In the transesterification process, more FFA intermediate present would become beneficial to conversion of retrograde feedstock to biodiesel. The immediately generated and original FFA content become the major rate-determining factor in the FFA-mixed transesterification process.