ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION Enzymatic Synthesis of Furfuryl Alcohol Ester with Oleic Acid by Candida antarctica Lipase B and Its Kinetic Study Avery Sengupta • Tanmoy Dey • Mahua Ghosh • Jaydip Ghosh • Santinath Ghosh Received: 7 May 2012 / Accepted: 8 January 2013 / Published online: 2 March 2013 Ó The Institution of Engineers (India) 2013 Abstract This study investigated the successful enzy- matic production of furfuryl oleate and its detailed kinetic study by Michaelis–Menten model. Esterification of oleic acid and furfuryl alcohol by Candida antarctica lipase B (Novozym 435 preparation) in a solvent free system was studied in the present work at 1:1 molar ratio of furfuryl alcohol and oleic acid. About 99 % conversion (on the basis of oleic acid) has been achieved within 6 h at 5 % enzyme concentration. Ping-pong bi-bi mechanism (inhibition phenomenon taken into account) was applied to describe the ratios as a complex kinetic model. The kinetic parameters were determined using MATLAB language programme. The two initial rate constants K A and K B respectively were found out by different progress curves plotted with the help of MATLAB language programme. It was concluded from the results that furfuryl alcohol considerably inhibited the enzymatic reaction while oleic acid had negligible inhibi- tory effect. It was clearly seen that the initial rate was increased with the increase in the furfuryl alcohol concen- tration until 2 M/L after which there was a drop in the initial rate depicting the inhibitory effect of furfuryl alcohol. Surprisingly, it has been observed that addition of 0.1 mol of product activated the esterification reaction. Finally, the model was found to be statistically fitting well with the experimental data. Keywords Furfuryl alcohol  Esterification  Oleic acid  Biolubricant  Kinetic study Introduction Renewable resource-based polymers can form a platform to substitute petroleum based polymers through innovative design. New bio-based polymers can compete with or even surpass the existing petroleum-based materials on a cost- performance basis with the added advantage of ecofriend- liness. Direct esterification starting from an acid and an alcohol is of major economic importance in the processing of renewable chemicals. Lubricants based on renewable raw materials and their derivatives are drawing increased attention in various applications. Furfuryl alcohol is a renewable chemical obtained via the hydrogenation of furfural, which is derived from the acid hydrolysis of pen- tosan-rich biomass. Furfuryl alcohol is easily polymerized in acid conditions to form thermostable polymers and is therefore widely applied in the foundry industry [1]. Its utilization in a form of ester with long-chain acids results in a biolubricant. Oleic acid (cis-9-octadecenoic acid) is one of the most important fatty acids in nature. It can be produced from plant oils [2], and the esters produced by enzyme catalysis can be applied as lubricant [3, 4]. Modern enzymology has achieved improvements in the development and application of lipase as catalyst. New immobilization techniques make possible to use enzymes in industrial processes in a similar way to the classical catalysis for heterogeneous reactions. Esters produced from long-chain fatty acids (12–20 carbon atoms) and short-chain alcohols (3–8 carbon atoms) have been used increasingly in the food, detergent, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Esters prepared from the reaction of long-chain acids with long-chain A. Sengupta  M. Ghosh (&)  J. Ghosh  S. Ghosh Department of Chemical Technology, University College of Science and Technology, University of Calcutta, 92, A.P.C. Road, Kolkata 700 009, India e-mail: mahuag@gmail.com; mgchemtech@caluniv.ac.in T. Dey Department of Home Science, University of Calcutta, 20B Judges Court Road, Kolkata 700027, India 123 J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. E (March–August 2012) 93(1):31–36 DOI 10.1007/s40034-013-0008-7