Biotech Enablers for Harnessing Vegetable Oil Waste

Enzymes can catalyse chemical reactions to convert waste stream oils and fatty acids into useful products. Many of these chemical reactions would not be commercially feasible with conventional thermochemistry. One example is the conversion of waste oils into biodiesel where lipases catalyse the reaction with methanol irrespective of the FFA content of the oil. This enables low grade byproducts of oil milling and chemical refining to be converted into a sustainable high value biofuel. Low grade coconut and palm kernel fatty acid distillates can be esterified to high quality methyl esters for the oleochemical industry. Another application is the glycerolysis of high free fatty acid waste oils where the reduction of FFA enables further processing into second generation biofuels without the need for expensive duplex steels. A slightly different example is enhanced methane gas capture from effluent streams such as POME using enzymes and microbes. All these biotech processes are environmentally benign using low temperatures with low carbon emission. They have been made accessible to the industry by means of process application developments and improvements in enzyme productivity. This presentation will explore the quantitative benefits of these biotech enablers together with reaction conditions that make the processes possible.