Recently, the project “Key Technologies for Enzymatic Modification of Lipids” completed by oil crops quality chemistry and nutrition team in Oil Crops Research Institute of CAAS, passed the Scientific and Technological Achievement Appraisal organized by Hubei Science and Technology Department. The experts all agreed that these key technologies reached the international advanced level; some even reached the international leading level.


Functional lipids have beneficial efficacies such as preventing cardio-cerebrovascular disease, controlling obesity, promoting growth and development, etc. They are applicable for a wide crowd and have a strong market demand. The characteristic and function of natural oils are too single to meet the diversification needs on lipid products. Enzymatic modification are reported to be an efficient way to improve the solubility, stability, absorption rate and other physicochemical properties of lipids and develop a variety of functional lipid products, and thus expand the application scope of lipids, and increase their added value greatly.

A green target efficient enzymatic modification technology system for lipids has been promoted by the chief scientist Prof. Huang Fenghong with his team by associating three technologies, the high activity of lipase microreactor array, ultrasonic pretreatment efficient enzymatic reaction system and a high-throughput structural lipid analysis technology based on two-dimensional chromatography-mass spectrometry together. This technology solved the bottleneck problems of low catalyst activity and stability, slow reaction rate, and difficult identification of the products. Based on this technology, the reaction conversion rate could be up to 90% in as fast as 15 minutes, and the related immobilized lipase could be reused up to 50 times, which reached the international advanced level.

This achievement has been successfully applied in the targeting preparation of functional lipids such as phytosterol ester, breast lipid substitutes and flavonoid unsaturated fatty acid esters and the like. Phytosterol ester product meets the quality requirements of the US Food Chemicals Codex and Chinese Ministry of Health Announcement (2010 No. 3). Compared with the domestic and foreign technologies, this technology has the advantages of outstanding targeting effect, high conversion efficiency, fast reaction speed, wide adaptability of raw materials and product diversification, etc., which is significant for the expansion of the lipid resources applications, the increase of the added value and comprehensive benefits of oil processing, and the promotion of residents nutrition and health levels.