Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

Fatty acid sugar esters are non-ionic surfactants with high emulsifying, stabilizing and detergency effect, which are used in food, cosmetic, detergent or pharmaceutical industry. They are produced from renewable and cheap products and they are biodegradable, non-toxic, non-irritating to the skin and have no taste or smell.They are usually produced using basic catalysts at high temperatures and with low selectivity. However, enzyme catalysis is more selective, less toxic and less energy is consumed. Lipases can synthesize fatty acid sugar esters from sugars. The possibility of using mesoporous materials to deposite these enzymes have many advantages because of mesoporous materials have high surface area and pore sizes, are suitable for the size of the enzyme and easy to be modified, and have high stability to be reused.In this work three lipases immobilized in SBA-15 mesoporous siliceous material have been used to obtain lactose esters. Lipases studied are obtained from C. antartica, R. miehei and T. lanuginosus. Then, the reutilization of theses enzymes is also evaluated. Experiments are conducted in 50 ml flasks by adding oleic acid (0.55 mmol), lactose (0.55 mmol), ethanol 99% (0.6 ml), different amounts of immobilized lipase, molecular sieve 3 Å (0.1 g) and acetone (5 ml), incubating the mixture at 40ºC, 250 rpm, 72 hours.

Biography

Isabel M González Delgado is presently undertaking her second year of her PhD in the area of Food Biotechnology in the group of Chemical and Engineering Technology of the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid (Spain). She gained her degree in Biotechnology at the Pablo de Olavide University. Afterwards, she undertook a Master related to Rare Diseases. During these years she has collaborated in several research projects in the area of molecular biology, genetic engineering, biocomputing and molecular modelling.