Effects of nonuniform immobilized enzyme distribution in porous solid supports on the performance of a continuous reactor

A comprehensive model for an immobilized enzyme reactor is developed to study the performance of a nonuniform biocatalyst in a continuous stirred basket reactor. Numerical simulations have been carried out to study the influence of particle size on enzyme stability and effectiveness. The advantages of nonuniform profiles have been shown for moderate to large values of the Thiele modulus for systems obeying Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Experimental results [1] for hydrogen peroxide-immobilized enzyme on controlled-pore glass and SiAl particles were re-analyzed using the information obtained for the nonuniform distribution of immobilized enzyme. It is demonstrated that the deactivation data obtained in a continuous stirred basket reactor are followed much more closely by the nonuniformly than by the uniformly distributed enzyme model.