Immobilization of Lecitase (Phospholipase A1) in gelatin hydrogel and its stability is studied with a view to utilizing the immobilized enzyme for degumming rice bran oil. Excellent retention of enzyme activity ([80%) is observed in hydrogel containing 43.5% gelatin crosslinked with glutaraldehyde. Compared to the free enzyme which has a broad pH-activity profile (6.5-8.0), the activity of the immobilized enzyme is strongly dependent on pH and has a pH-optimum of pH 7.5. The optimum temperature of enzyme activity increases from 37 to 50°C. Compared to the free enzyme which loses all its activity in 72 h at 50°C, the immobilized enzyme retains its activity in full. The immobilized enzyme has been used efficiently in a spinning basket bioreactor for the degumming of rice bran oil with 6 recycles without loss of enzyme activity. The phosphorus content of the oil decreases from 400 ppm to 50-70 ppm in each cycle. After charcoal treatment and dewaxing, a second enzymatic treatment brings down the phosphorus content to \5 ppm.
Blends of natural polysaccharide sodium alginate (5%) with gelatin (3%) cross-linked with glutaraldehyde provide beads with excellent compressive strength (8 x 10(4) Pa) and regular structure on treatment with calcium chloride. Lipases from porcine pancreas, Pseudomonas cepacia, and Candida rugosa were immobilized in such a blend with excellent efficiency. The immobilized enzymes were stable and were reused several times without significant loss of enzyme activity both in aqueous and reverse micellar media. The beads were functionalized with succinic anhydride to obtain beads with extra carboxylic acid groups. These functionalized beads were then successfully used for 7.4-fold purification of crude porcine pancreatic lipase in a simple operation of protein binding at pH 5 and release at pH 8.5.
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