A new combined method to localize enzyme immobilized in polymeric membranes and evaluate its activity in situ

Biocatalytic membrane reactors using immobilized enzymes is a well-documented technology located at an emerging step in a graph of research efforts vs technology development. The immobilization of enzymes has proven to increase their stability and it has recently been shown that the widely observed inverse relationship between stability and activity is not a general rule. Various methods are used to immobilize enzymes in membranes and usually the amount of immobilized enzyme is calculated by mass balance between the initial solution (feed) and final solutions (retentate and permeate). The catalytic properties are then measured as observed reaction rate on the basis of the reaction product in the bulk solution. At authors' knowledge, there is not yet published information on where the enzyme is immobilized within the polymeric membrane matrix