Development and Characterization of Immobilized Enzyme Reactors (IMERs)

In the past few years, the applicability and versatility of immobilized enzyme reactors (IMERs) has been extensively demonstrated. The majority of IMERs system relies on enzymes immobilized to packed matrices within flow-through devices. This approach doesn’t required highly purified enzymes or a great amount of protein, but principally can increase the enzymatic stabilization against heat, organic solvents and pH, without too much loss of catalytically activity. Thus, in IMERs an immobilized enzyme becomes a catalyst confined or localized on a suitable support so that it can be used repeatedly for as long as it remains active, thereby minimizing costs, time of analysis and make it economically feasible to operate in a continuous mode. A variety of matrices have been investigated over the years for enzyme immobilization or encapsulation; in particular the use of silica based IMERs has received increasing attention and the applications have grown steadily. Therefore IMERs now find applications in scientific fields as diverse as pharmacology, chemistry, materials science and chemical engineering. This thesis focused on the development and characterization of IMERs based on various enzymes immobilized on silica based matrices by using different immobilization techniques.