Review

Production of biodiesel:
possibilities and challenges
Sulaiman Al-Zuhair, UAE University, United Arab Emirates

Received 19 April 2007; revised version received 24 April 2007; accepted 10 May 2007
Published online 9 July 2007 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2;
Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 1:57–66 (2007)

Abstract: Biodiesel, defined as monoalkyl fatty acid ester (preferentially methyl and ethyl esters), represents a
promising alternative fuel for use in compression-ignition (diesel) engines. Biodiesel fuel comes from renewable
sources as it is plant- not petroleum-derived and as such it is biodegradable and less toxic. In addition, relative to
conventional diesel, its combustion products have reduced levels of particulates, carbon oxides, sulphur oxides
and, under some conditions, nitrogen oxides. Enzymatic production of biodiesel has been proposed to overcome
the drawbacks of the conventional chemically catalyzed processes. The main obstacle facing full exploitation of the
enzyme, lipase, potential is its cost. Therefore, reuse of lipase is essential from the economic point of view, which
can be achieved by using the lipase in immobilized form. In addition, immobilized lipase displays improved stability
and activity. Common immobilization techniques include attachment to solid supports and entrapment within the
matrix of a polymer. This article presents a comparison between conventional processes and enzymatic processes
and different possible feedstocks for biodiesel production. In addition, possible ways to overcome the problems
facing the use of lipase are described. © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Keywords: biodiesel; lipase; alcohols; transesterification; immobilization; vegetable oils

Introduction to petroleum-based diesel, biodiesel has a more favourable

combustion emission profile, such as low emissions of carbon
iodiesel is defined as the mono alkyl esters (methyl monoxide, particulate matter and unburned hydrocarbons. In

B and ethyl esters) of long chain fatty acids derived from

vegetable oils or animal fats, for use in
compression-ignition (diesel) engines. It is formed from
transesterification of vegetable oils with methanol (or
ethanol). Biodiesel has many merits as a renewable energy
resource that include being derived from a renewable,
domestic resource, thereby relieving reliance on petroleum
fuel, and it is biodegradable and non-toxic. Further, compared
addition, using biodiesel on a large scale will promote planta-
tions of crops used to produce its feedstock. This would result
in more carbon dioxide recycling by photosynthesis, thereby
minimizing the impact on the greenhouse effect.1,2 Biodiesel
has a relatively high flash point (150oC), which makes it less
volatile and safer to transport or handle than petroleum
diesel.3 It provides lubricating properties that result from
the free fatty acids present, which reduce engine wear and

Correspondence to: Sulaiman Al-Zuhair, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, UAE University,

17555 Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates. E-mail: s.alzuhair@uaeu.ac.ae

© 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 57
S Al-Zuhair
extend engine life.4 Furthermore, biodiesel has physical
properties and energetic content close to those of petroleum
diesel, which allows it to function efficiently in conventional
diesel engines without any modification. The author of this
review has investigated the use of biodiesels, from palm oil,
5
as an additive to conventional diesel fuel (CDF). The effects
of adding the biodiesel on fuel consumption rate and the
concentration of CO in effluent gaseous emission were quan-
tified. It was found that by using CDF–biodiesel emulsion a
considerable reduction in fuel consumption and CO concen-
tration was achieved when compared to pure CDF. At present,
the high cost of biodiesel is the major obstacle to its commer-
cialization. It has been reported, however, that the high cost of
biodiesel is mainly due to the cost of the virgin vegetable oil
used as feedstock.3, 6
Conventional production of biodiesel
The most common way to produce biodiesel is by transes-
terification, which refers to a catalyzed chemical reaction
involving vegetable oil and an alcohol to yield fatty acid
alkyl esters (i.e. biodiesel) and glycerol. Several aspects,
including the type of catalyst, alcohol/vegetable oil molar
ratio, temperature, water content and free fatty acid content
have an influence on the course of transesterification. Trans-
esterification reactions are conventionally alkali-catalyzed
or acid-catalyzed.
Chemical catalysts production
Many studies of alkali-catalyzed transesterification have
been carried out and a reaction temperature near the boiling
point of the alcohol (e.g. 60oC for methanol) and a 6:1 molar
7–9
ratio of alcohol to oil were recommended. The kinetics of
7, 8, 10
the alkali-catalyzed system was studied and the reac-
11
tion mechanism was formulated. A commercial continuous
alkali-catalyzed transesterification process to produce methyl
esters on an industrial scale under high pressure (90 bar) and
at high temperature (240oC) was demonstrated by Kreutzer.12
However, high energy consumption, a significant increase in
equipment cost and process safety issues related to the high
temperature, rendered this process prohibitive. The most
important limitation of the alkali-catalyzed process is its
sensitivity to both water and free fatty acids contents in the
58 © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 1:57–66 (2007); DOI: 10.1002/bbb
Review: Production of biodiesel: possibilities and challenges
feedstock. The presence of water may cause ester saponifica-
tion under alkaline conditions, and free fatty acids can react
with the alkali catalyst to produce soaps.13, 14 Saponification
not only consumes the alkali catalyst, but also the resulting
soaps can cause the formation of emulsions, which creates
difficulties in downstream recovery and purification of
the biodiesel. Thus, dehydrated vegetable oil with less than
0.5 wt % free fatty acids, an anhydrous alkali catalyst and
anhydrous alcohol are necessary for commercially viable
alkali-catalyzed systems.7, 15 This requirement is likely to be a
significant limitation to the use of a low-cost feedstocks.16, 17
On the other hand, acid-catalyzed transesterification has
been largely ignored, mainly because of its relatively slower
reaction rate, despite its insensitivity to free fatty acids in the
feedstock. Freedman et al.7 investigated the transesterifica-
tion of soybean oil with methanol using 1 wt % concentrated
sulfuric acid (based on oil). They found that at 65oC and a
molar ratio of 30:1 methanol to oil, it took 69 h to obtain
more than 90% oil conversion of methyl esters. Canakci and
Gerpen18 studied the effects of the molar ratio of alcohol to
soybean oil, the reaction temperature, the amount of catalyst,
and the reaction time on ester conversion by acid-catalyzed
transesterification. They found that increased ester conver-
sions could be obtained at increased molar ratios of alcohol
to oil, increased reaction temperatures, increased concen-
trations of sulfuric acid, and longer reaction times. The
kinetics of acid-catalyzed transesterification with butanol
was also investigated.7 Studies of the acid-catalyzed system
have been very limited in number. No commercial biodiesel
plants have been reported to use the acid-catalyzed process.
Despite its relatively slow reaction rate, the acid catalyzed
process offers benefits with respect to its independence from
free fatty acid content and the consequent absence of a
pre-treatment step. These advantages favour the use of the
acid-catalyzed process when using waste cooking oil as the
raw material, which usually has free fatty acids contents
greater than 2 wt %.16, 17, 19
Non-catalytic production
A non-catalytic biodiesel production route with supercritical
methanol has been developed that allows a simple process and
high yield because of simultaneous transesterification of tria-
cylglycerols and methyl esterification of fatty acids.20 It was
Review: Production of biodiesel: possibilities and challenges
Table 1. Comparisons between chemically catalytic processes and supercritical methanol method for biodiesel
production from vegetable oils by transesterification.
Alkali catalytic method
Reaction temperature (K) 303–338
Reaction pressure (MPa) 0.1
Reaction time (min) 60–360
Methyl ester yield (wt %) 96
Removal of Methanol, catalyst
Purification Glycerol, soaps
Free fatty acids Saponified products
evident that at the subcritical state of alcohol, reaction rate is
very low and gradually increases as either pressure or temper-
ature rises. However, it was also observed that increasing the
reaction temperature, especially to supercritical conditions,
20
has a favourable influence on the yield of ester conversion.
In addition, unlike the alkali-catalyzed method, the presence
of water affected positively the formation of methyl esters in a
supercritical methanol method. Comparison between chemi-
cally catalyzed processes and a non-catalytic supercritical
methanol method, for biodiesel production from vegetable
oils, is shown in Table 1.
Enzymatic production of biodiesel
Enzymes have been proposed to overcome the drawbacks
facing the conventional chemically catalyzed biodiesel
production methods, and have shown promising results.
Most importantly, glycerol can be easily recovered without
any complex process, free fatty acids contained in the oils
can be completely converted to methyl esters and subsequent
21
wastewater treatment is not required.
Lipase
Most lipases used as catalysts in organic synthesis are
of microbial and fungal origin, such as Candida rugosa,
Psuedomonas fluorescens, Rhizopus oryzae, Burkholderia
cepacia, Aspergillus niger, Thermomyces lanuginosa and
Rhizomucor miehei. Microbial lipases are easy to obtain, by
fermentation processes and a few basic purification steps.
One important aspect of lipolytic enzymes is the unique
property of interfacial activation, identified by Verger
© 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 1:57–66 (2007); DOI: 10.1002/bbb
S Al-Zuhair
Acid catalytic method Supercritical method
338 523–573
0.1 10–25
4140 7–15
90 98
Methanol, catalyst Methanol
Glycerol
Methyl esters, water Methyl esters, water
et al.22 The activity of lipases is low in monomeric solutions
of lipid substrates but is strongly enhanced once organized
lipid structures and a configuration change of the enzyme
at the water–lipid interface are formed. Knowledge of the
molecular aspects of some catalytic steps is essentially based
on structural information obtained by X-ray crystallography,
site directed mutagenesis and classical biochemical methods.
X-ray studies of the 3D structure of lipase confirmed the
existence of two distinct domains in lipase: a large
N-terminal domain that contains the active site with a
catalytic triad formed by Ser, Asp and His, and a smaller
C-terminal domain.23 The active site is covered by a surface
loop completely buried and sitting directly on top of the
active site. At the interface, the lid domain is unfolded and
exposes the active sites. An experimental approach to deter-
mine the activation of the lipase at the interface, proposed
by Rooney and Weartherley, 24 was used by Al-Zuhair et al.25
to determine that the activity of lipase at the interface was
15.7% higher than that in the bulk.
Pure lipases extracted from different sources have been
successfully used in the production of biodiesel,17, 26–40 as
shown in Table 2. C. antarctica B lipase, immobilized on
acrylic resin, commercially known as Novozym 435, was
by far the most commonly used enzyme for the production
of biodiesel. However, a comparative study on the type of
lipase powders from different sources40 revealed that P. fluo-
rescens lipase showed the highest enzymatic activity. On the
other hand, Hama et al.41 successfully used the whole-cell
R. oryzae as biocatalyst and investigated the effect of cell
membrane fatty acid composition on biodiesel-fuel
production.
59
S Al-Zuhair Review: Production of biodiesel: possibilities and challenges

Table 2. Microbial lipases used for the production of biodiesel.

Lipase Oil Alcohol Optimum temperature ( oC) Reference
Novozime 435 Soybean oil Methanol 17, 27, 32
Soybean oil Methyl acetate 26
Canola oil Methanol 38 28
Rice bran oil Methanol 29
Olive oil Methanol 40 30
Vegetable oil Methanol 33
Waste ABE Methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, 34
1-butanol, iso-butanol,
iso-amylalcohol, and n-octanol
R. delemar Vegetable oil Methanol 33
R. miehei Vegetable oil Methanol 33
Palm oil Methanol 39
C. rugosa Waste ABE Methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, 34
1-butanol, iso-butanol,
iso-amylalcohol, and n-octanol
Jatropha oil Ethanol 38
C. lipolytica Soybean oil Methanol 32
K. oxytoca Soybean oil Methanol 32
P. camembertii Soybean oil Methanol 32
P. fluorescens Soybean oil Methanol 32
Triolein 1-propanol 60 40
Jatropha oil Ethanol 38
P. cepacia Soybean oil Methanol and ethanol 40 32, 34
Jatropha oil 38

In addition to the type of lipase, other factors affecting the
effectiveness of lipase in the production of biodiesel from
triacylglycerol are the water content, temperature, number
of cycles (for immobilized lipase) and the type of alcohol and
its ratio to oil. The effects of alcohol and number of cycles
are discussed later in this review.
The effect of water content on the production of biodiesel
31
from soybean oil using lipases from R. oryzae, C. rugosa
and P. fluorescens, 32 Novozym 43542 and B. cepacia34 have all
shown that enzyme activity was low in the absence of water,
which supports the fact that a minimum amount of water is
required to activate the enzyme. With increased addition of
water there was a considerable increase in ester production,
showing the enhancement in the activity of the enzyme.
However, the enzymatic activity gradually decreased at
higher water contents. Similar results were found in the
production of biodiesel from triolein using immobilized
P. fluorescens lipase.40 The author has shown that R. meihei
lipase maintains its activity up to 20% water, 39 which agrees
with other studies made on the same enzyme.43 On the other
hand, methanolysis activity of Novozym 435 was inhibited
at a much lower water content of only 0.1% water.42 This
effect of water on lipase activity is due to the fact that lipase
acts at the interface between aqueous and organic phases.
Activation of the enzyme involves unmasking and restruc-
turing the active site through conformational changes of the
lipase molecule, which requires the presence of an oil–water
interface.23, 25 With increased addition of water, the amount
of water available for oil to form oil–water droplets increases,
thereby, increasing the available interfacial area. However,
since lipases usually catalyze hydrolysis in aqueous media,
excess water stimulates the competing hydrolysis reaction.

60 © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 1:57–66 (2007); DOI: 10.1002/bbb
Review: Production of biodiesel: possibilities and challenges S Al-Zuhair

Table 3. Comparison between the physical and chemical properties of biodiesel fuels produced from various
vegetable oils.
Vegetable Production Kinematic Cetane Lower Cloud Flash Density
oil used yield viscosity number 48 heating value point point (g L -1) 48
(kg ha –1)49 (mm 2 s-1) 48 (MJ L -1) 48 ( oC) 48 ( oC) 48
Peanut 890 4.9 (37.8 oC) 54 33.6 5 176 0.883
Soybean 375 4.5 (37.8 C)o
45 33.5 1 178 0.885
Soybean 375 4.0 (40 oC) 45.7–56 32.7 – – 0.880 (15 oC)
Babassu - 3.6 (37.8oC) 63 31.8 4 127 0.879
Palm 4000 5.7 (37.8 C) o
62 33.5 13 164 0.880
Palm 4000 4.3–4.5 (40 C) o
64.3–70 32.4 – – 0.872-0.877 (15 oC)
Sunflower 655 4.6 (37.8 oC) 49 33.5 1 183 0.860
Rapeseed 1000 4.2 (40 C)
o
5 l–59.7 32.8 – – 0.882 (15 oC)
Used rapeseed - 9.48 (30 oC) 53 36.7 – 192 0.895
Used corn oil - 6.23 (30 C) o
63.9 42.3 – 166 0.884

The optimum water content is a compromise between mini-
mizing hydrolysis and maximizing enzyme activity for the
transesterification reaction.
On the other hand, the effect of temperature on the
enzymatic production of biodiesel showed that as the
temperature is increased the reaction rate initially increases,
which is mainly due to an increase in rate constants with
temperature, and partly due to less mass transfer limitations.
However, the initial rate decreases sharply at the onset of
denaturation of the enzyme at higher temperatures. In addi-
tion to the deactivation of the enzyme, the presence of the
inactive enzyme at the interface blocks the active enzyme
from penetrating the interface, which further decreases
the reaction rate.25 This trend was observed in all studies
that investigated the effect of temperature on the produc-
tion of biodiesel by lipase, however, the critical temperature
at which the enzyme starts to deactivate was different, as
shown in Table 2.
Feedstock
Vegetable oils
Several types of vegetable oils can be used for the prepara-
tion of biodiesel, as shown in Table 3. However, there are no
technical restrictions on the use of other types of vegetable
oils. Global vegetable oil production has increased from
56 million tons in 1990 to 88 million tons in 2000, and the
increase is still continuing.11 Leading the gains in vegetable
oil production is palm oil, which increased from 17.1
million tons in 1997 to 19.3 million tons in 1999. In addi-
tion, palm oil has the highest yield of around 4000 kg per
hectare compared to that of other vegetable oils, the highest
of which, for coconut oil, is around 2250 kg per hectare.
Furthermore, greater palm oil yields, up to 10 tons per
hectare from well-managed plantations, have been reported
recently on the USDA-FAS website. Therefore, it would be
economically intuitive to consider palm oil as a favourable
feed stock for biodiesel production. On the other hand, Shah
and Gupta38 argued that it is more reasonable to use ined-
ible oils such as Jatropha oil, as edible oils are not in surplus
supply. Despite this, the majority of reported studies used
soybean oil26, 27, 31, 34, 44, 45 and sunflower oil.41, 47, 48 In addition,
some work has been reported on the enzymatic production
of biodiesel using olive oil, 30 rice bran oil29 and canola oil.28
A comparison between the production yields of various
vegetable oils and the physical and chemical properties of
biodiesel fuels produced from them are shown in Table 3.49, 50
Other feedstock
It has been reported that 60–90% of the biodiesel cost arises
from the cost of the feedstock oil.29 Thus, the use of waste
cooking oil should greatly reduce the cost of biodiesel.

© 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 1:57–66 (2007); DOI: 10.1002/bbb 61
S Al-Zuhair
In addition, production of biodiesel from waste edible
oil is considered an important step in reducing and recy-
cling waste oil. A fresh vegetable oil and its waste differ
significantly in water (around 2000 ppm) and free fatty acid
19, 29
(10–15%) contents. Therefore, alkaline catalyst cannot
be utilized, and chemical catalysts are limited to the slower
acidic ones.19 Indeed, the use of waste oil as a feedstock for
biodiesel production by acidic catalyst has been reported
19, 51, 52
in the literature. On the other hand, lipase is capable
of converting all the free fatty acids contained in waste oils
to esters.30 It has been reported that the reaction proceeds
in a similar manner when using Novozym 435 to produce
biodiesel from virgin and used olive oils, and the conver-
sion was almost identical for both cases, which confirms the
applicability of lipase with waste cooking oil.30 In addition,
up to 500 ppm water found in waste vegetable oil decreased
the rate of methanolysis but did not affect the equilibrium of
33
the reaction.
On the other hand, animal fats have been used for the
53
production of biodiesel. However, due to the high melting
points, which are usually near the denaturation temperature
of lipase, the reaction has to take place in an organic solvent
media to dissolve the solid fat. The addition of organic
solvent is not recommended, as it requires the addition of a
solvent recovery unit. Other sources of oils have also been
evaluated as raw material for biodiesel production, including
35
waste oil adsorbed on activated bleaching earth (ABE) and
cellular biomass of oleaginous yeasts and fi laments fungi.54
Acyl-acceptors
Alcohols
Methanol is the most commonly used alcohol in biodiesel
production, mainly because of its reactivity, as shown
in Table 2. Although methanol is easier to produce than
ethanol, sustainable methods of methanol production are
currently not economically viable and the majority of it is
formed from syngas, which is extracted from natural gas
(a non-renewable source). In addition, methanol is the most
toxic and has the most deleterious effect on the biocatalyst
activity in comparison to other alcohols. On the other hand,
ethanol can easily be formed from renewable sources by
fermentation, which makes the process of biodiesel
62 © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 1:57–66 (2007); DOI: 10.1002/bbb
Review: Production of biodiesel: possibilities and challenges
production, totally ‘green’. Therefore, ethanol is more readily
accepted for use in a variety of industrial situations.
The effect of methanol on the enzymatic production
of biodiesel has been thoroughly discussed in the litera-
ture. Shimada et al.42 reported that biodiesel production
increased with increasing methanol concentration up to
an oil-to-methanol ratio of 3:1, and then decreased when
methanol concentration was further increased. This was also
found by Noureddini et al.34 although the ratio was higher
(7.5:1). In general, it is widely accepted that methanol that
is completely dissolved in the substrate mixture should not
inactivate the lipases.33, 39, 42 Proteins generally are unstable in
short-chain alcohols such as methanol and ethanol. There-
fore, lipases are inactivated by contact with insoluble meth-
anol, which exists as drops in the oil. To avoid this problem
the amount of methanol used should be below its solubility
limits in oil. To achieve this efficiently, stepwise addition of
methanol in a way to keep the amount below its solubility
has been proposed.33, 42 Further, lipases having substantial
methanol resistance, such as those extracted from Pseu-
domonas strains or using long-chain fatty alcohols that do
not inhibit the enzyme could be used to overcome methanol
inhibition problems. In addition, the use of organic solvent
to dissolve the methanol has also been suggested; however,
this is not recommended as it requires the addition of a
solvent recovery unit. On the other hand, methyl acetate has
been proposed to replace alcohols as an acyl acceptor for
biodiesel production from soybean oil using Novozym 435.26
It was shown that methyl acetate had no negative effect on
enzymatic activity and almost no loss in lipase activity was
detected even after being continuously used for 100 batches.
However, when methanol was used in an appropriate
concentration, its reaction rate remained much faster.
Immobilization of lipase
Lipases are spontaneously soluble in aqueous solutions as
a result of their globular protein nature55 but their natural
substrates (i.e. lipids) are not. Using a suitable organic
solvent or an emulsifier helps to overcome the problem
of intimate contact between substrate and enzyme.25, 56
However, the practical use of lipase in such psuedohomoge-
neous reaction systems poses technological difficulties such
Review: Production of biodiesel: possibilities and challenges
as contamination of the products with residual enzymatic
activity, and economic difficulties such as the use of enzyme
in a single reactor pass. Hence, part of the overall potential
enzymatic activity is lost. If the lipase is immobilized, then
it becomes an independent phase within the reaction system,
which may easily be retained in the reactor with concomi-
tant advantages in preventing contamination of the products
and extending its useful active life. Further, increasing the
temperature generally increases the rate of lipase-cata-
lyzed reaction per unit amount of active enzyme; however,
increasing the temperature also leads to a higher thermal
deactivation rate of the lipase itself, thus yielding decreasing
25, 57
amounts of active enzyme. Because immobilization
provides a more rigid external backbone for lipase molecule,
temperature optima are expected to increase, 56 which results
in a faster reaction rate.
Among all the immobilization methods, physical adsorp-
tion has been clearly selected by most researchers due to
its ease, absence of expensive and toxic chemicals, ability
58
to retain the activity, and feasibility of regeneration.
On the other hand, poor adsorption of enzyme results in
its leaching off the support surface, which favours other
means of enzyme immobilization such as covalent bonding,
entrapment and encapsulation. It is possible to strengthen
the attachment between the water-soluble enzyme and the
water-insoluble surfaces by using multifunctional agents
that are bifunctional in nature and have low molecular
weight, such as glutaraldehyde.55, 59, 60 The author of this
review has studied the kinetics of lipase adsorption and
a temperature dependence correlation for the amount of
adsorbed lipase activity and that present in the supernatant
solution was determined.60 Immobilized lipase by physical
adsorption has been successfully used in biodiesel produc-
27, 36, 37, 42–46
tion. On the other hand, lipase immobilized by
entrapment is much more stable than physically adsorbed
lipase, and unlike the covalent bonding,60 this method uses
61
a relatively simple procedure. Hsu et al. developed a novel
procedure for the immobilization of lipase from B. cepacia
within a phyllosilicate sol–gel matrix. The applicability of
using lipase encapsulated in a sol–gel in biodiesel produc-
34, 62, 63
tion has shown encouraging results.
Dispersing immobilized enzyme in a stirred tank reactor
promotes intimate contact of the enzyme with the reaction
© 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 1:57–66 (2007); DOI: 10.1002/bbb
S Al-Zuhair
mixture. The immobilized enzyme is retained within
the reactor by means of a fi lter at the outlet. Low costs of
construction are normally associated with these reactors.
However, as the reaction proceeds, glycerol is generated
and physically mixes with the alcohol to form a second
liquid phase that is not completely miscible with the oil.
Th is second polar organic phase serves to extract alcohol
from the oil phase, thereby decreasing the concentra-
tion of this substrate in the reaction medium and causing
a concomitant decrease in the conversion achieved in a
fi xed amount of time. Consequently, conversions will be
enhanced if glycerol is removed from the substrate mixture
as the reaction proceeds.46 To achieve this, membrane reac-
tors with immobilized lipase are proposed, which may take
either a flat sheet64 or hollow fibre form.37, 65 In this type of
reactor, continuous reaction and separation can take place
simultaneously.
Conclusions
Biodiesel has very similar properties to petroleum diesel but
with much lower sulfur, CO2 and particulate emissions. In
conventional chemical processing, synthesis of fatty acid
esters (biodiesel) is achieved by alkaline- or acidic-catalyzed
transesterification of triacylglycerol (oil). The acid-catalyzed
production of biodiesel has received less attention because
it is 400 times slower than production using alkali catalyst.
Nevertheless, the acid-catalyzed approach is less sensitive to
free fatty acids in the feedstock oil than the alkali-catalyzed
process. Transesterification by either chemical catalyst has
several drawbacks, which include being energy intensive,
difficult to recover glycerol and requires wastewater treat-
ment. In addition, free fatty acids present in the oil interfere
with the reaction, especially for the alkaline catalyst case,
leading to undesirable side products. A less energy inten-
sive and environmental friendly procedure would be to use
enzymes for oil transesterification. Enzymatic transesteri-
fication can overcome the problems facing conventional
chemical methods without compromising the advantages of
using alkaline- catalyzed reactions. Most importantly, glyc-
erol can be easily recovered without any complex process
and free fatty acids contained in the oils can be completely
converted to methyl esters. In addition, with enzymatic
63
S Al-Zuhair Review: Production of biodiesel: possibilities and challenges

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