Microbially-Mediated Process - Alternative to Chemical Process in Biodiesel Production

Scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology discovered a microbial route for  biodiesel production. The common chemical route for biodiesel production is to react plant oil with methanol under alkaline conditions followed by  heating at about 50 ^oC for several hours. The enzyme “lipase” is then added to the oil-methanol mixture. In the newly discovered microbial route, the thermal treatment is deleted. The raw material mixture of plant oil and methanol is simply passed through a bed of spores from the fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae, to produce the biofuel. The lipase enzyme produced by the fungus converts the oil and methanol into biodiesel immediately. This process does not have the costs associated with the purification of the lipase enzyme and the long thermal treatment, thus reducing cost and increasing production efficiency. The research was recently presented as a poster paper at the International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore.