Hydrolysis of rice bran oil using an immobilized lipase from Candida rugosa in isooctane

The kinetics of enzymatic hydrolysis of rice bran oil in isooctane by immobilized Candida rugosa lipase in a batch reactor showed competitive inhibition by isooctane with a dissociation constant, K1, of 0.92 M. Continuous hydrolysis of rice bran oil was performed in recycling, packed bed reactor with 4352 U of immobilized lipase; the optimum recycle ratio was 9 and the operational half-life was 360 h without isooctane but 288 h with 25% (v/v) isooctane in rice bran oil.