Producción de DHA a partir de glicerol con Gluconobacter oxydans: desarrollo del bioproceso

Abstract

Current global energy supply is mainly based on fossil fuels usage (oil, coal and natural gas) since they are relatively low-priced and easy to extract and process. However, fossil-fuel burning is directly related with the emission of polluting gases, which causes greenhouse effect involved in climate change, triggering natural disasters such as droughts, floods and high temperatures with dramatic consequences. Furthermore, this energy resource is expected to run out in a near future. Thus, the replacement of fossil fuels by biofuels from renewable sources is imperative for securing a sustainable energy supply. As a response to this concern, strategic energy policies have been adopted by European Union in recent years to promote the consumption of energy from renewable sources.Considering the high impact of transportation on total energy consumption in European Union (33 %), European Parliament and European Council published in 2009 the Directive 2009/28/EC, which defines that at least 10% of transport energy should come from renewable sources by 2020.Among renewable biofuels, biodiesel has attracted great interest because it can be used directly in conventional diesel motors without any modification. Thus, it is not surprising the high increase in biodiesel production throughout the past decade as a consequence of the favourable regulatory framework set. Taking into account that biodiesel production leads to a stoichiometric generation of crude glycerol as byproduct, which involves nearly 10 wt % of the total biodiesel produced, the above mentioned situation has led to a glycerol glut, making impossible for traditional glycerol uses to be able to absorb the current oversupply of this product. As a result, there has been a sharp drop in glycerol prices, which has made the refining process of crude glycerol uneconomical, converting crude glycerol into an industrial waste for disposal. For this reason, searching of new uses of glycerol is imperative in order to make biodiesel processes not only economically more competitive, but also, more environmentally sustainable...