Effect of PEG-mediated pore forming on Ca-alginate immobilization of nitrilase-producing bacteria Pseudomonas putida XY4.

Effect of PEG-mediated pore forming on Ca-alginate immobilization of nitrilase-producing bacteria Pseudomonas putida XY4 was studied. Through using PEG as porogen, the environmental tolerance as well as the biocatalytic reaction efficiency of immobilized cells was greatly improved, i.e., Ca-alginate-PEG immobilized cells got better temperature and substrate concentration tolerance than Ca-alginate immobilized cells and showed similar efficiency with free cells, suggesting that the intrinsic mass transfer resistance of immobilization obviously decreased. It was also observed that the pore diameter and porosity of immobilization beads were related with the molecular weight of PEG. PEG400 was found to be a relatively suitable porogen for Ca-alginate-PEG immobilized cells catalyzed hydrolysis of glycinonitrile. It was noteworthy that the Ca-alginate-PEG immobilized cells could be reused more than 18 times with little loss of enzyme activity which had shown good operation ability and great application potential.