Initially, the oil concentration was varied from 0.24 mg/ml to
0.57 mg/ml range of substrate concentration, the initial rate of
hydrolysis varied linearly with substrate concentration. Noor et al.
(2003) also observed that the rate of hydrolysis of tallow, coconut
oil and olive oil by lipase from C. rugosa varied linearly with oil
concentration. Experiments were also conducted at high oil concentrations,
up to 0.57 mol/l to check the substrate inhibition.
However, these experiments showed that no substrate inhibition
was observed. According to the maximum reaction rate obtained by
Pugazhenthi and Kumar (2004) using the same olive oil substrate
but in a membrane type reactor, the value of Vmax reported was
0.0000024 mol/l s, which was less than the value obtained in the
present study. Such a result indicated the effectiveness of the
proposed route for both lipase production and that of oil hydrolysis
addressed in the present work.