Hydrolytic and redox biocatalysis for lipid-based biofuels and bioproducts

In developing the next generation biofuels, we should consider not only alternative biomass resources, but also diversified products and processing technologies that can afford more efficient industrial manufacturing. Toward that, enzymes have been shown being versatile and increasingly competitive. This presentation reports our recent studies in biocatalysis engineering for lipid-based biofuels and bioproducts. Lipases with enhanced organic compatibility can efficiently catalyze transesterification reactions for syntheses of biodiesel and biosurfactants from lipids in anhydrous media. Enzymatic oxidation reactions also offer great potentials in deriving lipid-based products. Glycerol dehydrogenase enables intensified production of dihydroxyl acetone (DHA) from glycerol in an integrated bioelectrochemical reactor, while enzymatic epoxidation of lipids promises the synthesis of bioplastics with controllable Tg's.