Hollow fiber reactor has a larger surface area per unit volume than other reactors. Because of this advantage it is used as enzyme reactor, however it is not suitable for carrying out a three phase reaction as it is.
For this purpose recently dual hollow fiber bioreactor was developed. In the present study dual hollow fiber with silicone tube oxygenator was used as three-phase enzyme reactor and glucose oxidation with glucose oxidase (GOD) was selected as model reaction. Oxygen is supplied through the silicone membrane and glucose is supplied from the tube side through the fiber wall. GOD and catalase are retained between the two fibers.
As was in immobilized enzyme systems GOD was less sensitive with respect to the variation of the temperature. The activation energy of the immobilized GOD was 71% of that of the soluble enzyme. The optimum temperature was 50℃. Above the enzyme loading 1mg/mL(17.6 units/mL) the conversion of the substrate did not increase. Oxygen limitation was observed at a lower substrate concentration in the absence of oxygenator. The reactor was operated in diffusion mode and in ultrafiltration mode. The ultrafiltration mode gave higher conversion, but showed poorer enzyme stability.
