High‐pressure enzymatic hydrolysis of oil

The hydrolysis of sunflower and soybean oil, catalyzed by two enzymes, non-immobilized Candida rugosa and immobilized Candida antarctica lipase, was performed at atmospheric and high-pressure. The results showed that at atmospheric pressure between 40 °C and 60 °C initial reaction rates were influenced by the temperature variation, as expected. Due to favorable physico-chemical properties of dense gases as reaction media, hydrolysis of soybean oil was performed in non-conventional solvents: in supercritical (SC) CO2 and near-critical propane. In SC CO2 the activity of non-immobilized Candida rugosa lipase decreased while the reaction rates of hydrolysis catalyzed by immobilized Candida antarctica lipase were 1.5-fold higher than at atmospheric pressure. However, the reaction rates for the hydrolyses catalyzed by both lipases, were much higher in propane than at atmospheric pressure.