Importance of lipases of oil seeds in the process of eco-friendly biodiesel

The current rapid growth in demand for fuel and global climatic changes due to the oil processing has resulted in the quest for alternatives for renewable fuels. Recent developments in the oil industry has indicated a growing interest in the biodiesel production and has proved to be a environmentally acceptable fuel source. Many plant oils have been suggested and used as fuels across the globe. However, the processing methods for converting the plant oils into feasible biofuels need to be simplified and generalized while keeping the environmental challenges minimal. Accordingly, in comparison to the chemical processing of oils, enzymatic catalysis in the transesterification of oils is found to require simple chemicals as well as lower temperatures. In this work it has been estimated the efficiency and concentrations of lipases of selected oil seeds viz., Arachis hypogaea (Groundnut), Glycine max (Soya), Helianthus annuus (Sunflower), Sesamum indicum (Gingelly) for their candidacy in the bioprocessing of biodiesel. Our data indicated the lipases from Gingelly to be the most efficient with the highest specific activity suggesting high turnover per unit protein and lowest Km suggesting highly active nature of the enzyme. Though our data is indicative of the fact that the Gingelly lipases could be used for the bio processing of the biodiesel, this enable to trust further necessory investigations with different oil samples.