Research Article
Nadia Abdi, Lila Bensaadall
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate a new bio-electrochemical technique based on the utilisation of electric potential to enhance the enzymatic reaction. The efficiency of bio-electrochemical reactor has been achieved by studying the production of reducing sugar by enzymatic hydrolysis of olive mill. The results indicate that the application of a continuous electric potential of about 50 mV allowed a significant increase of the saccharification efficiency by about 25% (compared to an enzymatic process without electric potential). For an electric potential higher than 60 mV, the saccharification efficiency decreased, suggesting that the enzyme, a biological substance, could be damaged at high electric potential. It has been shown that the kinetics of the bio-catalyzed reactions could be controlled by an applied electric potential.