Preparation of chitosan particles suitable for enzyme immobilization

Immobilization of Lipases Produced by the Endophytic Fungus Cercospora kikuchii on Chitosan Microparticles

“…Different supports and methods have been used to immobilize fungal lipases with results of activity retention varying between 30 and 61% (Kim et al 2006;Simões et al 2011;Liu et al 2011;Zhu and Sun 2012). Chitosan is a biopolymer derived from crustacean skeleton chitin and commonly used as support (Biró et al 2008). The features of chitin and chitosan include its abundance as a by-product of the fishing and fermentation industries, its low cost over other supports for enzymes, its lack of toxicity emphasized by the fact that chitin is present in the foods of large consumption such as shellfish and sake, its chemical reactivity allowing easy fixation of enzymes.…”

Potential Applications of Chitosan Nanoparticles as Novel Support in Enzyme Immobilization

“…These characteristics are in favour of immobilization of the enzymes (Tang et al, 2006). Recent studies indicated that the performance of enzyme immobilization onto chitosan nanoparticles is higher than that of the biocatalyst immobilized onto chitosan microparticles (Biro et al, 2008;Nakorn, 2008). The result can be related to better distribution of the enzyme onto the support due to high specific surface area and numerous active functional groups available for fixing the enzyme molecules (Tang et al, 2006).…”

“…In addition, the physical characteristics of nanoparticles such as enhanced diffusion and particle mobility can impact inherent catalytic activity of attached enzymes (Jia et al, 2003). Biro et al (2008) indicated that the activity of ß-galactosidase immobilized onto chitosan nanoparticles was higher than that of the biocatalyst immobilized onto chitosan micro and macroparticles. Research studies have also indicated that the stability of immobilized enzymes onto chitosan nanoparticles drastically affects by method of chitosan nanoparticles preparation and type of surfactant (Tang et al, 2006;Biro et al, 2008).…”

“…In fact, if the nanoparticles are not stabilized, they try minimizing their surface energy by clustering together (Ren et al, 2011). Biro et al (2008) indicated that the stability of ß-Galactosidase immobilized onto chitosan nanoparticles was lower than that of the biocatalyst immobilized onto chitosan micro and macroparticles. The second disadvantage of using nanoparticles to immobilize enzyme is difficult separation of them from the reaction mixture at the end of the biochemical process, due to their small size (Prakasham et al, 2010).…”

“…Instability and sensitivity to process conditions are disadvantages of using soluble enzymes. Therefore, application of solid phase biocatalysts has become more and more important during the last decades (Biro et al, 2008). Immobilized enzymes have a great importance in industrial bioprocesses especially in food, nutritional and pharmaceutical technologies (Sheldon, 2007).…”