The reactor was equipped with single impeller located at 3.0 cm from the
oval bottom of the vessel. Three types of impeller were used
in the reactor operation study, namely Rushton turbine
(six-bladed disc turbine) (RT), AL-hydrofoil (AL-H) and
2-bladed elephant ear (EE) impeller. Table 1 shows the
configurations of the impellers used in 2 L STR.
The reaction was started by addition of 82.1 g Lipozyme
RM IM to the reaction mixture consisting of 600 mmol
palm oil (512.6 g) and 1800 mmol oleyl alcohol (483.3 g)
which was incubated at 50.4 C. n-Hexane was added to
make the final working volume of 1.5 L. The impeller speed
of the reaction was varied from 50 to 450 rpm and operated
for 5 h. Samples were collected every 2 mL through sampling
port using syringe at different time intervals. The
sample was passed through a syringe filter (SPR 15) to
remove any trace of enzyme prior to gas chromatography
(GC) analysis.