Metal-organic Frameworks as a Robust Biocatalysis Platform for Enzymatic Production of Biodiesel

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are an attractive class of hybrid materials with metal clusters and organic linkers. The unusual properties of MOFs, such as permanent nanoscale porosity, high surface area, uniformly structured cavities and the availability of in-pore functionality and outer-surface modification, are advantageous using as lipase immobilization platform. Herein, we covalent immobilized CALB onto MOFs and then evaluated the biocatalyst performance in the esterification of oleic acid with methanol for biodiesel production. Experimental data about the methanolysis process was evaluated by response surface methodology. The highest yield of 98.9 ± 0.4% was obtained under the optimized conditions: methanol/oil ratio of 3.65:1, a reaction temperature of 46.3 °C, a CALB@MOF loading of 117.77 mg and a reaction time of 11.55 h, which was closed to the predicted value (100.00%). Verification experiment confirmed the validity of the predicted model.