Preliminary Studies for Production of Fatty Acids from Hydrolysis of Cooking Palm Oil Using C. rugosa Lipase

Hydrolysis of triglyceride to yield free fatty acids and glycerol from cooking palm oil have been studied for various parameters such as enzyme and oil loading, temperature, pH and agitation speed. A maximum conversion was achieved in 90 min at oil concentration of 0.1 g/ml, enzyme loading of 7.46 kLU/ml, temperature of 45°C, pH 7.5 and 200 rpm. A kinetic model based on mechanism of lipase catalyzed in oil-aqueous system using Michaelis-Menten equation was used to determine the rate constant of Vmax and Km, and it was found to be 370.37 mol/min mg-enzyme and 1.23 g/ml, respectively.