Nanotechnology holds the prospect for avant-garde changes to improve the performance of materials in various sectors. The domain of enzyme biotechnology is no exception. Immobilization of industrially important enzymes onto nanomaterials, with improved performance, would pave the way to myriad application-based commercialization. Keratinase produced by Bacillus subtilis was immobilized onto poly(ethylene glycol)-supported Fe3O4 superparamagnetic nanoparticles. The optimization process showed that the highest enzyme activity was noted when immobilized onto cyanamide-activated PEG-assisted MNP prepared under conditions of 25 degrees C and pH 7.2 of the reaction mixture before addition of H2O2 (3% w/w), 2% (w/v) PEG(6000) and 0.062:1 molar ratio of PEG to FeCl2 x 4H2O. Further statistical optimization using response surface methodology yielded an R2 value that could explain more than 94% of the sample variations. Along with the magnetization studies, the immobilization of the enzyme onto the PEG-assisted MNP was characterized by UV, XRD, FTIR and TEM. The immobilization process had resulted in an almost fourfold increase in the enzyme activity over the free enzyme. Furthermore, the immobilized enzyme exhibited a significant thermostability, storage stability and recyclability. The leather-industry-oriented application of the immobilized enzyme was tested for the dehairing of goat-skin.
Materials
at the nanoscale offer numerous avenues to be explored
and exploited in diverse realms. Among others, proteinaceous biomaterials
such as silk hold immense prospects in the domain of nanoengineering.
Silk offers a unique combination of desirable facets like biocompatibility;
extraordinary mechanical properties, such as elongation, elasticity,
toughness, and modulus; and tunable biodegradability which are far
better than most naturally occurring and engineered materials. Much
of these properties are due to the molecular structure of the silk
protein and it is self-assembly into hierarchical structures. Taking
advantage of the hierarchical assembly, a large number of fabrication
strategies have now emerged that allow the tailoring of silk structure
of at the nanoscale. Harnessing the favorable properties of silk,
such methods offer a promising direction toward producing structurally
and functionally optimized silk nanomaterials. This review discusses
the critical structure–property relationship in silk that occurs
at the nanoscale and also aims to bring out the recent status in the
approaches for fabrication, characterization, and the gamut of applications
of various silk-based nanomaterials (nanoparticles, nanofibers, and
nanocomposites) in the niche of translational research. Harnessing
the favorable nanostructure of silk, the review also takes into account
the impetus of silk in avant-garde applications such
as chemo-biosensing, energy harvesting, microfluidics, and environmental
applications.
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