Abstract

Invertase has significant application in the food processing industries. The partial purification and immobilization of the enzyme extracted from Tiger nut (Cyperus esculentus L.), within polyacrylamide and calcium alginate gels was studied. Some kinetic parameters/characterization of the immobilized enzyme systems was carried out using a batch process to identify the optimal conditions of the immobilized systems. The Evaluation Assays of varying temperature and pH were conducted on the immobilized systems. The polyacrylamide immobilized invertase had an optimum pH of 7 and optimum temperature of 40 0 C with Michaelis constant, Km of 1.50M and Vmax of 33.11μmol/min. The calcium alginate immobilized invertase exhibited an optimum pH and temperature of pH 7 and 40 0 C respectively with a Km of 3.02M and a Vmax of 20.88μmol/min. Turnover number calculated for both immobilized systems revealed a higher value of 22.07 obtained for polyacrylamide as compared with 6.91 for calcium alginate gel. Furthermore, the result on inhibition- effects on cations indicated that CoCl2 and FeCl2 activated immobilized calcium alginate gel while MnSO4 , CaCl2 and HgCl2 activated immobilized polyacrylamide gel. Thus, the immobilization of polyacrylamide gel gave better results considering the kinetic properties obtained.