Synthesis and Properties of Immobilized Pectinase onto the Macroporous Polyacrylamide Microspheres

Pectinase was covalently immobilized onto the macroporous polyacrylamide (PAM) microspheres synthesized via an inverse suspension polymerization approach, resulting in 81.7% immobilization yield. The stability of the macroporous PAM support, which has a large surface area, is not impeded by the adsorbed proteins despite the fact that up to 296.3 mg of enzyme is immobilized per gram of the carrier particles. The immobilized enzyme retained more than 75% of its initial activity over 30 days, and the optimum temperature/pH also increased to the range of 50−60 °C/3.0−5.0. The immobilized enzyme also exhibited great operational stability, and more than 75% residual activity was observed after 10 batch reactions. The kinetics of a model reaction catalyzed by the immobilized pectinase was finally investigated. Moreover, the immobilized pectinase could be recovered by centrifuging and showed durable activity at the process of recycle.