Immobilisation of lecitase® ultra for production of diacylglycerols by glycerolysis of soybean oil

Immobilisation of lecitase (R) ultra and production of diacylglycerols (DAG) through glycerolysis of soybean oil catalysed by immobilised lecitase (R) ultra (IM-LU) were investigated in this study. This enzyme was immobilised by macroporous resin adsorption, and IM-LU with an enzyme activity of 1682 U/g, achieved under selected conditions. The results showed that the solvent-free system was preferred for the IM-LU-catalysed glycerolysis reaction as compared with the organic solvent systems. In a solvent-free system, with a reaction of 12 h under the optimum conditions, an upper lipid layer of the reaction mixture with 53.7 wt.% DAG content was obtained. IM-LU exhibited a remarkable reusability in recycling experiments by reusing the recovered IM-LU for 28 consecutive batches. Furthermore, IM-LU was observed to have sn-1, 3-specificity towards triacylglycerols in the glycerolysis reaction and a tendency to enrich saturated fatty acids in DAG with respect to the original oil. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.