Immobilization of Papain on Siliceous Mesocellular Foam

Siliceous mesocellular foam(MCF)is employed as carriers in the immobilization of papain,and the properties and the stabilities of the immobilized enzyme are investigated in detail.The results show that the amount of papain immobilized on MCF reaches 334mg/g MCF and the activity of immobilized papain is 95.3% of that of the free papain.The Km of immobilized and free papain are 6.99×10-3mol/L and 6.71×10-3mol/L,respectively.The thermal and storage stabilities of immobilized enzyme are improved due to the microenvironment and the shield of the mesopores.MCF can be considered as excellent supports for papain immobilization.