PREPARATION OF FATTY-ACIDS FROM WOOD OIL BY ENZYMATIC-HYDROLYSIS

Abstract

Owing to its glyceridic composition, woad oil (Isatis Tinctoria), is a potential source of essential fatty acids. Fatty acids can be obtained from this oil by enzymatic hydrolysis of triglycerides. In our study, we realized a series of experiments with different catalysts and defined the most suitable enzymatic catalyst (Candida Rugosa lipase) along with the optimal reaction conditions (temperature, pH and enzyme concentration) for hydrolysis of woad oil. A kinetic model has been proposed to study the reaction mechanism. The proposed conditions have permitted to recover the fatty acids at appreciably good yield. The negligible fraction of unreacted triglycerides can be separated by silica gel column chromatography.