Production of free fatty acids from switchgrass using recombinant Escherichia coli

Renewable Biomass Utilization: A Way Forward to Establish Sustainable Chemical and Processing Industries

Lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks are promising alternatives to fossil fuels for meeting raw material needs of processing industries and helping transit from a linear to a circular economy and thereby meet the global sustainability criteria. The sugar platform route in the biochemical conversion process is one of the promising and extensively studied methods, which consists of four major conversion steps: pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation, and product purification. Each of these conversion steps has multiple challenges. Among them, the challenges associated with the pretreatment are the most significant for the overall process because this is the most expensive step in the sugar platform route and it significantly affects the efficiency of all subsequent steps on the sustainable valorization of each biomass component. However, the development of a universal pretreatment method to cater to all types of feedstock is nearly impossible due to the substantial variations in compositions and structures of biopolymers among these feedstocks. In this review, we have discussed some promising pretreatment methods, their processing and chemicals requirements, and the effect of biomass composition on deconstruction efficiencies. In addition, the global biomass resources availability and process intensification ideas for the lignocellulosic-based chemical industry have been discussed from a circularity and sustainability standpoint.

Liquid lipase-catalyzed hydrolysis of gac oil for fatty acid production: Optimization using response surface methodology

Fatty acids are valuable products because they have wide industrial applications in the manufacture of detergents, cosmetics, food, and various biomedical applications. In enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis, the use of immobilized lipase results in high production cost. To address this problem, Eversa Transform lipase, a new and low-cost liquid lipase formulation, was used for the first time in oil hydrolysis with gac oil as a triglyceride source in this study. Response surface methodology was employed to optimize the reaction conditions and establish a reliable mathematical model for predicting hydrolysis yield. A maximal yield of 94.16% was obtained at a water-to-oil molar ratio of 12.79:1, reaction temperature of 38.9 °C, enzyme loading of 13.88%, and reaction time of 8.41 h. Under this optimal reaction condition, Eversa Transform lipase could be reused for up to eight cycles without significant loss in enzyme activity. This study indicates that the use of liquid Eversa Transform lipase in enzyme-catalyzed oil hydrolysis could be a promising and cheap method of fatty acid production. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 2018.