Journal des bioprocédés et des biotechniques

Enhancement of Enzymatic Process by Electric Potential Application

Abstract

Nadia Abdi, Lila Bensaadallah, Nadjib Drouiche, Hocine Grib, Hakim Lounici, Andre Pauss and Nabil Mameri

The purpose of this study is to investigate a new bio-electrochemical technique based on the utilisation of electric potential to enhance the enzymatic reaction. The efficiency of bio-electrochemical reactor has been achieved by studying the production of reducing sugar by enzymatic hydrolysis of olive mill. The results indicate that the application of a continuous electric potential of about 50 mV allowed a significant increase of the saccharification efficiency by about 25% (compared to an enzymatic process without electric potential). For an electric potential higher than 60 mV, the saccharification efficiency decreased, suggesting that the enzyme, a biological substance, could be damaged at high electric potential. It has been shown that the kinetics of the bio-catalyzed reactions could be controlled by an applied electric potential.