Kinetics of continuous starch hydrolysis in a membrane reactor

Following a previous study on kinetics of enzymatic starch hydrolysis with Termamyl 1201 (Novo Nordisk) in batch reactor, this paper deals with kineti cs in a continuous recycled membrane reactor (CRMR). Starting from results obtained in various working conditions, an equation relating the production rates of small oligosaccharides (DP ranging from 1 to 5) to the sum of con centrations of oligosaccharides with a higher degree of polymerisation is p roposed. This equation looks like the one already reported for a batch syst em, with the exception that in the CRMR the enzyme activity varies: an expo nential decay of activity as a function of time must be introduced to smoot h carefully data points. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved .