Figure 3

Effect of biomass loading on the cell entrapment efficiency and the invertase activity. Non-viable cell suspensions at final concentrations of 50, 100, 200, 300, and 400 g/L (wet biomass) were subjected to calcium alginate entrapment. The beads invertase activity was determined for sucrose (120 mM) hydrolysis at pH 5.5 and 60°C using the DNSA method. Immobilization yield expresses the percentage of initial invertase activity which was not recovered in the entrapped cells but remained in the CaCl₂ solution. Data are the means of triplicate measurements ± standard deviation. Different letters are significantly differences between invertase activity for each quantity of biomass loading (Student-Newman-Keuls test, α = 0.05).