Our Institute are also engaged in the research of studying whole cell biocatalyst(Rhizopus oryzae IFO4697)instead of conventional immobilized extracellular lipase for biodiesel production.

　　Utilizing whole cell overproducing intracellular lipase is a potential way to reduce the biocatalyst cost for biodiesel production, since it can avoid the complicated procedures for the preparation of traditional extracellular immobilized lipases, such as isolation, purification and immobilization of the lipase. We are currently focusing on optimizing bioreactor design as well as improving mass-transfer during the process of whole cell -mediated biodiesel production.