Computation of effectiveness factor for a reaction-diffusion process in an immobilized enzyme system

Abstract

An isothermal and steady state continuity equation for a key component in a catalyst particle was developed and applied to lactose hydrolysis in a fixed bed reactor containing an immobilized enzyme of β-galactosidase on spherical chitosan beads, where lactose (substrate) was taken as the key component. The differential equation was solved numerically by orthogonal collocation and reverse shooting methods to predict the concentration of the key component inside the pellet and effectiveness factor for a single independent reaction taking place in the porous catalyst structure where the enzyme was immobilized. The computed results agreed with the analytical solutions (with maximum deviations between 4 and 7 %) for the spherical geometry of biocatalyst particle using different kinetics for lactose hydrolysis in the fixed bed reactor.