The new flow system approach in packed bed reactor applicable for immobilized enzyme

Several studies have been directed to development of reactors for chemical–biological reactions have been carried out successfully. “Dead zones” are areas where the substrate has non-contact with catalyst, and this situation in reactors has been seen as inconvenience in relation to productivity. Moreover, a catalyst immobilized in porous support also must be difficult. We have been obtained preliminary results in batch system of invertase immobilized on glass–ceramic support (GCS) (1000 °C/3 h), were the optimum pH and temperature of free and immobilized enzyme was similar, 5.0 and 45 °C. The apparent Km for free invertase was 13.53 times higher than the free invertase. Aiming the work using packed bed reactors to study the activity of invertase in different flow systems, was obtained sigmoid curves using reactors 1 and 2, with the best result 4.75 U/g GCS and 3.09 U/g GCS, respectively. The lab-scale setups from flow system continuous, down-flow, up-flow and alternate-flow were studied. Alternate-flow is the alternation of down-flow and up-flow in previous time mentioned. This innovative flow system has facilitated contact among sucrose solution and immobilized enzyme to obtain the invert sugar production 24 h faster, due elimination of “dead zones” in the reactor in comparison to others flow systems.

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► New glass–ceramic from coal fly ashes sintering to immobilized invertase.
► The support was improved in the immobilization process.
► New type of flow also has been proposed to improve the contact substrate/enzyme.
► Support can be an alternative to reduce environmental pollution.