Effect of working conditions on vegetable oil transformation in an enzymatic reactor combining membrane and supercritical CO2

An enzymatic membrane reactor based on an enzymatic membrane elaborated by immobilizing a lipase on a ceramic support was used to perform interesterification between castor oil triglycerides and methyl oleate. As substrates solution is highly viscous, viscosity was reduced by injecting supercritical CO2. the validation of the concept, the influence of different operating parameters as regards performance has been checked. The effect of the pore size of the ceramic support on which the enzyme is deposited has been looked at. Operating pressure was proved to be a key parameter as it highly influences productivity. jective of this work is to report attractive results on this process which opens interesting prospects in a field where at the present time there are very few valuable technologies.