Enzymatic production of glycerol carbonate from by-product after biodiesel manufacturing process

Glycerol carbonate is one of the higher value-added products derived from glycerol. In this study, glycerol carbonate (GC) was synthesized by transesterification of glycerol and dimethyl carbonate (DMC) using Novozym 435 (Candida antarctica Lipase B) at various conditions. For the enzymatic production of GC, the optimum conditions were the amount of enzyme (75 g/L), DMC/glycerol molar ratio (2.00), reaction temperature (60 degrees C) and organic solvent (acetonitrile). Experimental investigation of the effect of water content revealed that the conversion of GC was maximized with no added water. The addition of surfactant such as Tween 80 increased the GC conversion, which finally reached 96.25% under the optimum condition and with surfactant addition. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.