An analysis of immobilized enzymatic reaction in a packed-bed reactor with enzyme denaturation

Abstract

A general dispersion model is adopted in the present work for predicting the performance of a packed-bed reactor with pellicular immobilized enzyme catalysts. The effects of enzyme denaturation and substrate inhibition on the reactor performance are considered. A comparison of the numerical results for the present case with those for the previous quasisteady state case without enzyme denaturation reveals that the transient period for the latter case is rather short and the steady state model will be a good approximation for predicting the reactor performance. It is also observed that under many circumstances the reactor performance with conventional enzyme catalysts is better than that with pellicular ones.