Enzymatic hydrolysis of protein in wastewater synthetic: study of operating conditions

Abstract

The high content of protein present in wastewaters of slaughterhouse and dairy industries may lead to a low rate of biodegradation in conventional biological treatment systems. The use of hydrolytic enzymes as adjuvants in treatment systems may be an alternative to increasing the efficiency of biodegradation since the enzymes hydrolyze the substrate, making the substrate more easily assimilable to the microorganisms. The objective of this study was optimizing the best conditions of pH, temperature and concentration of papain in the hydrolysis of synthetic wastewater. Were used synthetic wastewater with the protein fraction simulated using bovine serum albumin (BSA) and gelatin. Were obtained different profiles of protein concentration decay for the BSA and the gelatin with the enzyme tested, papain, the most efficient hydrolysis of BSA. The hydrolysis conditions for simulated wastewater with BSA were pH 5-6 and temperature of 36°C, for all concentrations of enzyme. For the simulated wastewater with gelatin, all variables tested presented significant effect (p<0.05), with pH optimum between 5- 6, temperature of 30°C and concentration of enzyme of 0.1%.