Kinetic model for the esterification of ethyl caproate for reaction optimization

• A non-isothermal kinetic study, using experiments carried out in batch stirred reactor, has been made for the enzymatic synthesis of ethyl caproate by Fusrium solani pisi cutinase.
• The main kinetic characteristic was found to follow a 3rd ordered Ping Pong Bi Bi mechanism.
• The model shows that productivity decreases as the temperature increases, which means that lower temperatures favour the reaction esterification.

The present work aims to achieve additional insight on a mechanism describing the fundamental steps involved in the esterification reactions catalyzed by cutinase. The synthesis of ethyl caproate has been used as a model system to obtain a suitable kinetic model to estimate the activation energies involved in the various steps of the reaction pathway.Kinetic measurements have been made for the enzymatic esterification of caproic acid with ethyl alcohol catalyzed by recombinant Fusarium solani pisi cutinase expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae SU50. Different temperature conditions, from 25 to 50 °C, were tested for two different alcohol/acid molar ratios (R = 1 and R = 2). The third ordered Ping Pong Bi Bi mechanism with alcohol inhibition was shown to be able to describe the experimental results. The model shows that the productivity decreases as the reaction temperature increases.

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