(290e) Ultrafiltration of Endo-Pectinase Solution with a Static Mixer Placed in a Ceramic Membrane

Industrialy important extracellular hydrolytic enzymes of microbial origine are usualy manufactured by solid-state or submerged cultivations, both of them having its own strenghts and weaknesses. The main characteristic of submerged productions is that the enzymes are obtained in very diluted form. So, choice of the operations in downstream processing have not only to allow enzymes concentration and purification that will be economically efficient, but also to take care of preservation of their fragile biological function. Application of an ultrafiltration as the one of the downstream processing techniques allows both concentration and primary purification of an enzyme, but there is also a possibility of extensive loss of an enzyme activity due to high shear forces generated in such system. The objective of this work is to investigate the use of ceramic membrane system for ultrafiltration of endo-pectinase solution. The Kenics static mixer was placed inside a ceramic membrane in order to improve the ultrafiltration performance. Indeed, the use of the static mixer resulted in significant performance improvement compared to the one without the static mixer: the permeate flux improvement of 45% together with the energy saving of about 40% were obtained at a volume concentration factor (VCF) of 3. However, the extensive loss of endo-pectinase activity was observed in both configurations: around a half of the enzyme activity was lost during concentration to a VCF of 1.5. In order to ?protect? the enzyme activity, 2% of pectin was added to the original endo-pectinase solution. The use of the static mixer enabled ultrafiltration of such modified feed at similar fluxes as those obtained with the original solution with negligible loss of the enzyme activity: only 8% during concentration to a VCF of 1.5.