Biotechnological Utilisation of Fusel Oil, A Food Industry By-Product A Kinetic Model on Enzymatic Esterification of i-Amyl Alcohol and Oleic Acid by Candida antarctica Lipase B

Nándor Nemestóthy*, László Gubicza, Erika Fehér and Katalin Bélafi-Bakó

Research Institute of Chemical and Process Engineering, Pannon University, Egyetem u. 2, HU-8200 Veszprém, Hungary

Article history:
Received July 4, 2006
Accepted February 6, 2007

Key words:
fusel oil, esterification, lipase, ping-pong bi-bi mechanism

Summary:
Fusel oil is a by-product of distilleries, its main component is i-amyl alcohol, which can form ester compounds. Esterification of oleic acid and i-amyl alcohol by Candida antarctica lipase B (Novozym 435 preparation) in n-heptane solvent was studied in this work. Ping-pong bi-bi mechanism (inhibition phenomena taken into account) was applied as a complex kinetic model. The parameters of the model were determined by numerical methods. It was found that four-parameter model fitted well with the experimental results and described properly the enzymatic reaction.

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