Kansai Paint Company, Ltd.

Jgc Corporation

Ojo Kako Co., Ltd.

Takamitsu Iida

Masahiro Sakamoto

Eiichi Hasegawa

Hiroshi Itoh

Takeshi Kobayashi

Shinji Iijima

Tomiaki Yamada

Tsutomu Yamamoto

Naoki Isobe

Keiichiro Watanabe

Tsuneo Sazanami

Saburo Fukui

Mikiko Hata

Masamichi Kamihira

A biocatalyst is immobilized with a graft product of a polymer and saponified polyvinyl acetate containing a stilbazolium group as a photo-crosslinking group. The polymer is preferably gelatin, collagen, starch, cellulose, gum arabic, tragacanth gum, carrageenan, mannan, dextrin or alginic acid. The graft product is prepared by bonding the polymer to the polyvinyl acetate, either directly through functional groups of the polymer and polyvinyl acetate or through a crosslinking agent. The polymer provides affinity for the biocatalyst and by grafting the polymer to the saponified polyvinyl acetate, damage to cells upon immobilization is reduced. A liquid composition containing a biocatalyst and the graft product is added to an aqueous solution of an inorganic salt or an organic salt to form a granular gel and the gel is irradiated with actinic rays to cure the gel.

Method for immobilizing biocatalyst in granular form with a

A granular fixed molded article of an enzyme or microorganism strain is prepared by adding dropwise a liquid composition, composed of (a) a hydrophilic photocurable resin having at least two ethylenically unsaturated bonds per molecule, (b) a photopolymerization initiator, (c) a water-soluble high-molecular-weight polysaccharide having the ability to become a gel upon contact with at least one polyvalent metal ion and (d) an enzyme or microorganism strain, to an aqueous medium containing a polyvalent metal ion to gel the composition in a granular form, and then irradiating actinic light on the resulting granular gel to cure the photocurable resin in the granular gel.

Process for producing granular fixed enzymes or microorganisms

Continuous fermentation with yeast to produce alcohol is carried out by continuously passing a carbohydrate-containing substrate liquid through a vessel packed with a thin film means having yeast immobilized therein. Surfaces of the thin film means extend in the direction of flow within the vessel to provide elongated parallel passages. The thin film means occupies from 10 to 65% of the volume of the vessel and preferably has a thickness of 0.1 to 3 mm. Preferably, the thin film means is formed by mixing an aqueous yeast suspension with a photo-crosslinkable resin and subjecting the mixture to radiation to photo-crosslink the resin.

Continuous alcohol fermentation process using immobilized yeast

A method for immobilizing enzymes or microbial cells which comprises the steps of uniformly mixing an aqueous dispersion of enzymes or microbial cells with a photo-curable resin having a number average molecular weight of 800 to 100,000, two or more photopolymerizable ethylenically unsaturated groups per molecule and hydrophilic groups, and irradiating actinic rays to the above mixture of photo-curable resin and enzymes or microbial cells. The immobilized product is advantageously used in various enzymatic reactions with stable enzyme activity.

Method for immobilizing enzymes and microbial cells

Growing community of inventors

Hiratsuka, Japan

Takamitsu Iida