Exploitation of Soybean Oil Acid Degumming Waste: Biocatalytic Synthesis of High Value Phospholipids

The acid degumming waste of the seeds oil refining industry is currently disposed of, but, instead, it could be exploited as an important source for the preparation of many products. In this work, the waste coming from the soybean oil refining step was first recovered and treated, allowing the isolation of a fraction enriched of phospholipids (PLs). Then, the latter was transformed, via an enzymatic reaction catalysed by phospholipase D (from Streptomyces netropsis), into more valuable products: polar head modified PLs-enriched mixtures containing phosphatidylserine (PS), phosphatidylglycerol (PG), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylhydroxybutyrate (PB). In the following we show how biocatalysis can be exploited for the production of value-added PLs, to be used as functional food and nutraceutical ingredients, from a renewable feedstock. This alternative to the industrial usual disposal procedures should impart to the whole process a greater value in terms of carbon recycling, in agreement with the paradigms of bioeconomy for a wiser reuse of renewable resources in a circular economy perspective.