The application of biotechnological methods for the synthesis of biodiesel

Synthesis of biodiesel is performed mainly by chemical catalysis, but can also be performed by enzymatic or microbial methods, and these might play an important role in future substitution of petroleum-based diesel. To discover sustainable, economically attractive biotechnological processes for biodiesel synthesis, close cooperation between different disciplines is needed. Currently, lipases are the enzymes of choice for the synthesis of fatty acid esters (FAE) from fats and oils, yielding biodiesel with the methyl esters (FAME) as the most important product. More recently, the direct production of FAE using engineered whole cell microorganism has also been described (MicroDiesel). Current enzymatic processes are still hampered by the high costs of the biocatalyst, but significant progress has recently been made leading to the first industrial enzymatic biodiesel production. Enzymatic biodiesel production is mostly attractive because of the starting materials (waste frying oils, oils with high water content, etc.), for which conventional chemical interesterification can hardly be applied.