Question

A productivity of 16 tons of inverted syrup may be achieved using one liter of the granular enzyme.

(a) True

(b) False

This question was addressed to me at a job interview.

Question is taken from High Fructose Corn Syrups and use of Immobilized Raffinase, Invertase and Lactase in section Immobilized Enzymes and their Uses of Enzyme Technology

Answer 1

The correct choice is (a) True

Easiest explanation: The above statement is true. As it is difficult to produce syrups of equivalent quality by acid hydrolysis. Also, enzymic inversion avoids the problems of acid hydrolysis such as high-color, high salt-ash, relatively low conversion, batch variability, etc. Free invertase with residence times of about a day may be used. But the use of immobilised enzymes with a residence time of about 15 min in a PBR helps make the process competitive and the cost of 95% inversion being not more than the final evaporation costs.