Optimization of glucose isomerase reactor: optimum operating temperature mode

The optimum temperature operation mode required to achieve high fructose productivity is studied for immobilized glucose isomerase (GI) packed bed reactor. In this study, the reactor design equation based on reversible Michaelis-Menten kinetics assumes both thermal enzyme deactivation and substrate protection. The optimization problem is formulated as a discretized constrained nonlinear programming problem (NLP). The formulation is expressed in terms of maximization of fructose productivity as the objective function subject to reactor design equation, kinetic parameter equations, substrate protection factor equation and feasibility constraints. The constraints are discretized along the reactor operating period by employing piecewise polynomial approximations. Approximately 7% improvement in terms of fructose productivity is achieved when running the reactor at the optimum decreasing temperature operation mode as compared to the constant optimum isothermal operation.