Biodiesel production from microbial whole cell biocatalyst

Enzymatic mode of biodiesel production has recently gained a special attention among researchers because it eliminates the disadvantages of alkaline process such as end product recovery, waste water treatment, energy intensive and etc. Recently, considerable attention has paid in the direct use of intracellular lipase as a whole-cell biocatalyst (i.e immobilization of the enzyme secreting microbial cells) for biodiesel production where immobilization was carried out at the of microbial cell cultivation. The present investigation is focused on to establish appropriate conditions for immobilized whole cell biocatalyst for the production of biodiesel through transesterification. Fungi strains were isolated from wastes generated from oil industries and screened for the production of extracellular lipolytic enzymes and the most productive strain B2 was identified as Aspergillus sp. for further applications. *Corresponding Author: Ravichandran Indumathi  [email protected] Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences (JBES) ISSN: 2220-6663 (Print) 2222-3045 (Online) Vol. 3, No. 8, p. 94-101, 2013 http://www.innspub.net