Production of Useful Chemicals Using Cells Immobilized with Polyacrylamide and Carrageenan

Abstract

In 1973 and 1974 we succeeded in industrially producing L-aspartic acid and L-malic acid, using immobilized microbial cells prepared by entrapment in Polyacrylamide gel. The Polyacrylamide gel method is advantageous for the immobilization of microbial cells, but also has many disadvantages. To find a more advantageous procedure and to improve the productivities of immobilized microbial cell systems, we studied new immobilization techniques. As a result, we found that kappa-carrageenan—a type of polysaccharide—is very useful for immobilization of cells. We have already changed the production systems for L-malic acid and L-aspartic acid to this new immobilization technique from the conventional Polyacrylamide gel method.