Porcine pancreas lipase catalyzed synthesis of lauryl laurate in organic solvent media:: A kinetic study

The esterification of lauric acid with lauryl alcohol was studied using lipase from Porcine pancreas, with particular emphasis on the effect of the pertinent variables and kinetic aspects of the reaction. The reaction was studied in eight different solvents having hydrophobicity (the logarithm of octanol-water partition coefficient, lo; P) values ranging from 0.6 to 3.5 with constant water content in the reaction mixture and n-hexane was the most suitable solvent. The initial bites of the reaction were attempted to correlate with solvent properties and a significant good correlation seas obtained with solvent hydrophobicity (log P) and water solubility (log Sw). The kinetics of the esterification reaction conformed to the so-called Ping-Pong Bi-Bi mechanism with alcohol inhibition.