Esterification of oleic acid with methanol by immobilized lipase on wrinkled silica nanoparticles with highly ordered, radially oriented mesochannels.

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles with a wrinkled structure (wrinkled silica nanoparticles, WSNs) having highly ordered, radially oriented mesochannels were synthesized by a solvothermal method. The method used a mixture of cyclohexane, ethanol, and water as solvent, tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as source of inorganic silica, ammonium hydroxide as hydrolysis additive, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as surfactant, and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as stabilizing agent of particle growth. Particle size (240nm to 540nm), specific surface areas (490m(2)g(-1) to 634m(2)g(-1)), surface morphology (radial wrinkled structures), and pore structure (radially oriented mesochannels) of WSN samples were varied using different molar ratios of CTAB to PVP. Using synthesized WSN samples with radially oriented mesochannels as support, we prepared immobilized Candida rugosa lipase (CRL) as a new biocatalyst for biodiesel production through the esterification of oleic acid with methanol. These results suggest that WSNs with highly ordered, radially oriented mesochannels have promising applications in biocatalysis, with the highest oleic acid conversion rate of about 86.4% under the optimum conditions.