Immobilization of Cow Rumen Fluid Cellulase by Entrapment in Calcium Alginate Beads

Abstract

Cellulases represent a class of enzyme which provide a key opportunity for achieving tremendous benefits of biomass utilization. Cellulase can be produced by fungi, bacteria or Actinomycetes. Cow rumen fluid is a potential source of cellulase since cow rumen fluid is contain various kind of cellulolytic bacteria. Industrial application of enzyme is often hampered by a lack of long-term operational stability and difficult recovery and re-use of the enzyme. These drawbacks can be overcome by immobilization of the enzyme. In this research, we isolated enzyme from cow rumen fluid and immobilized it in calcium-alginate beads. The aim of the experiments was to investigated the effect of process parameters towards the cellulase activity. The process parameters are include: sodium alginate concentration (1%-4%), and temperature (40-55 0C). The immobilization was conducted in various condition and the free and immobilized enzyme were assayed by using DNS method. The research result showed that the activity of free cellulase was recorded 5,2 unit/ml. It was found that concentration of 3 % (w/v) sodium alginate solution gave the highest cellulase acivity, 67.41 unit/ml. While the optimum temperature for immobilization of cow rumen cellulase was 55 0C. Immobilization of cow rumen cellulase was able to increase the thermal stability of the enzyme.