Basic method of monoglyceride

The industrial production of monoglycerides is mainly by chemical method. Chemical synthesis of monoglycerides usually has low yield, high energy consumption, deep color and odor. In order to obtain higher quality and yield of monoglycerides, in recent years, people began to explore a new way to synthesize monoglycerides at lower temperatures using lipase as catalyst. Enzymatic synthesis of monoglycerides has many advantages, such as mild reaction conditions, low energy consumption and high product purity. A large number of relevant studies have been carried out at home and abroad, but there are still shortcomings such as low yield of monoglycerides, complex equipment structure used for synthesis, solvent system and operation process. Most of the studies are still in the experimental stage, and commercial production has not been realized.

Researchers at home and abroad use natural fats, fatty acids and glycerol as raw materials, using biocatalyst lipase, in the system with or without organic solvents, through the hydrolysis of fats or alcoholysis, fatty acids and glycerolysis, glycerolysis and other reaction ways. There are several ways that lipase synthesizes monoglycerides in the organic phase.

1, hydrolysis method refers to the process of natural oils or glycerides through hydrolysis to produce single glycerides. The main problem with hydrolysis is the low yield of monoglycerides, because for every lmol of monoglycerides, 2mol of fatty acids are produced, which inhibit acyl group transfer and thus prevent the hydrolysis from continuing.

2, esterification or transesterification reaction refers to the process of glycerol and fatty acid or fatty acid ester through esterification or transesterification reaction to produce a single glyceride. The key of esterification or transesterification reaction is to control the initial esterification product monoglycates from being further esterified into double or triesters, so the generated monoglycates should be separated from the reaction system in time to improve the yield of monoglycates.

3. Glycerolysis refers to the process of synthesizing single glycerides with natural oils or triglycerides and glycerols as substrates. The glycerolysis reaction has the highest theoretical yield, as 2mol of glycerol is consumed for every 1 molTAG(triglyl ester), while 3moI monoglycates are produced.