Fibrous polymer-grafted chitosan/clay composite beads as a carrier for immobilization of papain and its usability for mercury elimination.

Papain, which is an industrially important enzyme, has been immobilized on fibrous polymer-modified composite beads, namely poly(methacrylic acid)-grafted chitosan/clay. Characterization studies have been done using FTIR and SEM analysis. Operating parameters such as pH and initial concentration of papain have been varied to obtain the finest papain immobilized polymer-modified composite beads. The immobilization capacity of composite beads has been determined as 34.47 ± 1.18 (n = 3) mg/g. The proteolytic activity of immobilized papain was operated using bovine serum albumin (BSA) and maximum velocity (V max) and Michaelis-Menten constant (Km) values of the free and immobilized enzymes were determined using Lineweaver-Burk and Eadie-Hofstee equations. Usability of papain immobilized polymer-modified composite beads as adsorbents for the elimination of mercury was investigated. The maximum removal capacity of PIPMC beads has been found to be 4.88 ± 0.21 mg Hg/g when the initial metal concentration and weight of polymer-modified composite beads were 50 mg/L and 0.04 g at pH 7, respectively. Mercury removal performance of the papain immobilized polymer-modified composite beads was investigated in conjunction with Cu (II), Zn (II) and Cd (II) ions. The mercury adsorption capacity of papain immobilized polymer-modified composite beads was a slight reduction from 1.15 to 0.89 mg/g in presence of multiple metal salts.