Biotechnology Assignment

Question:
Discuss formulation and characteristics of immobilized cell biocatalysts.
Answer:
The means or the ways to immobilize the whole cells fall into two categories.
These are
1. Immobilization of cells - Active:
This refers to entrapment or binding of cells by physical or chemical forces.
Entrapment and binding are two main strategies under active immobilization of
cells.
Physical entrapment of cells within the porous matrices is the most widely used
method of immobilization.
Porous materials, viz. agar, chitosan - a polysaccharide obtained from the
exoskeleton of crustaceans, polyacrylamide, etc. and porous metal screens,
polyurethane, silica gel, etc. can be employed as various matrices for entrapment
of cells.
Use of polymer beads, alginate beads for example, is also considered for cell
immobilization. These polymer beads should have certain specific properties to
allow the transport of substrates and products in and out of the bead
The methods employed to prepare porous polymer beads are:
 Polymer gelation
 Polymer precipitation
 Ion-exchange gelation
 Polycondensation
 Polymerization
Formation of network Cross-links Examples
Precipitation Non-specific Collagen, polystyrene
Ion-exchange gelation Ionic in nature Alginates
Polycondensation Covalent linkage: hetero polar Epoxy resins
Polymerization Covalent linkage: homo polar Polymethylacrylate monomer

Entrapment in polymeric networks is the most commonly applied method of cell

immobilization.
Perhaps the one widely accepted and used is ionic cross links in a layer of bead of
alginate, a naturally occurring polysaccharide.
2. Immobilization of cells – Passive:
It refers to the growth of biological films. Biological films are the multi-layered
cells which have grown on the solid support surfaces. These support surfaces
sheltering the growing cells can be inert or biologically active.
It is a common tendency of formation of biological films and usually seen both in
the natural and industrial fermentation systems, for example, in wastewater
treatment using biological means and in the fermentation processes using moulds
respectively.
The forces of interaction between the cells and the support material are found to
be very intricate and complex. Indeed it depends upon the systems incorporated.
We find that the mixed cultured systems, these biofilms are basically produced
due to the presence of some polymer-producing organisms that enhance or
facilitate and even stabilize the formation of biofilms.
While in the stagnant biofilms, it is seen that the nutrients diffuse into the
biofilms and products diffuse out into the nutrient medium.
The formation of biofilms is depicted below:
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