In this work a kinetic model for the enzymatic conversion of sucrose to glu
cose and fructose using the free form of the enzyme invertase was studied.
The initial rates of conversion of sucrose into glucose and fructose were e
valuated for different initial concentrations of sucrose, fructose and gluc
ose. The results of the .-square test showed that the partially non competi
tive inhibition model for glucose and for fructose can be used to describe
the reaction kinetics with a degree of confidence higher than 99.9%. An ana
lysis of the sum of squares of the residuals for several inhibition models
cited in the literature showed that the partially noncompetitive inhibition
model is the best one for quantifying the effect of the concentration of g
lucose and fructose on sucrose hydrolysis. A comparison of a simulation of
this model with the experimental results showed that the model can describe
well the reaction in a batch reactor using initial concentrations of 600 g
/L.