Improved catalytic stability of immobilized Candida antarctic lipase B on macroporous resin with organic polymer coating for biodiesel production

Abstract Lipase is one of the most widely studied and applied biocatalysts. Due to the high enzyme leakage rate of the immobilization method of physical adsorption, we propose a new lipase immobilization method, which based on the combination of macroporous resin adsorption and organic polymer coating. The immobilized Candida antarctic lipase B (CALB@resin-CAB) was prepared by combining the macroporous resin adsorption with cellulose acetate butyrate coating, and its structure was characterized by various analytic methods. Immobilized lipase was applied for biodiesel production using acidified palm oil as the starting material, the conversion rate achieved as high as 98.5% in two steps. Furthermore, immobilized lipase displayed satisfactory stability and reusability in biodiesel production. When the aforementioned reaction was carried out in a continuous flow packed-bed system, the yield of biodiesel was 94.8% and space-time yield was 2.88 g/(mL∙h). CALB@resin-CAB showed high catalytic activity and stability, which has good potential for industrial application in the field of oil processing.