Adsorption of protein from several commercial lipase preparations onto a hollow-fiber membrane module.

Ten commercially available crude preparations of lipase from various microbial sources were adsorbed from aqueous buffers at several initial concentrations onto a bundle of hydrophobic hollow fibers made of poly(propylene) at pH 7.0 and 40 degrees C. The kinetics of adsorption were evaluated from measurements at various times of the protein content of the supernatant solution (using BSA as equivalent) in a well-mixed reservoir placed in series with the hollow fiber module. Preliminary tracer experiments have indicated that the module and the tank can be simulated as a system consisting of a plug flow reactor in series with a continuous stirred tank reactor. A mechanistic model based on the hydrodynamic assumptions associated with this system coupled with the postulation of two reversible first-order steps for the adsorption of protein was successfully fitted to the experimental data via nonlinear regression analysis. The statistical significance of the model was checked using tests for lack of fit. This work is useful in predicting the time period required to immobilize a (crude) lipase by adsorption onto a hydrophobic hollow fiber module, a configuration which has proved successful in the recent past for the performance of lipase-catalyzed reactions.