Immobilization of carbonic anhydrase enriched microorganism on biopolymer based materials

The whole cell of Bacillus pumilus was immobilized on different chitosan based materials while attempts were also made to immobilize carbonic anhydrase (CA) enzyme. The screening of materials for esterase activity resulted in the selection of biopolymer based beads as the potential material for whole cell and CA immobilization. The materials were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), while physical characteristics like BET surface area, particle size etc. were also determined. Esterase activity and other parameters, like effect of swelling, were determined on immobilized cells. After cell immobilization, the esterase activities of chitosan-NH4OH beads, multilayered beads, and sodium alginate were found to be 42, 36, and 30.5 U/ml, respectively, as compared to 27.15 U/ml for the free organism.