TUTORIALS

Part 1: Enzymes kinetics

1. Calculate the ratio of rate constants for an enzyme-catalyzed reaction and uncatalyzed reaction
when difference in activation energy between the two is 35.0 kJ/mol (temperature = 30°C).
2. For a system obeying Michaelis-Menten kinetics, if rate = 35 mmol/min and [C A] = Km, what
is the value of Vmax?
3. Two different enzymes having same Vmax are able to catalyze reaction, A → B. For enzyme 1,
the Km is 1.0 mM, for enzyme 2 the K m is 10 mM. When Enzyme 1 was used with 0.1 mM of A, it was
observed that B was produced at a rate of 0.0020 mmol/min. What is the value of V max? What will be
the rate of production of B when Enzyme 2 is used with 0.1 mM of A?
4. A competitive inhibitor (KI=2×10-5 M) binds to an enzyme that has a true K m=1.8×10-6 M for
its substrate and a Vmax of 2.1×10-4 mol/min.
(a) Calculate the apparent Km value in the presence of 1.5×10-3 M inhibitor.
(b) What is the maximum velocity that could be observed in the presence of the competitive
inhibitor?
5. If Vmax = 145 mmol/min and v0 = 80 mmol/min at 78 mM substrate for an enzyme that obeys
Michaelis-Menten kinetics, what is its Km?
6. Estimate Vmax and Km for the following enzyme catalyzed reaction data.

7. The initial rate without and with an inhibitor is given below. Determine the nature of
inhibition and estimate Vmax, Km, and Ki.

8. The initial rate without and with an inhibitor is given below. Determine the nature of
inhibition.

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9. In a batch bioreactor, the concentration after inoculation was 0.5g/l. The log phase usually
lasts 20min under these conditions. Assuming that, the cell concentration at the start of log
phase was not significantly different from that immediately after inoculation.
a. Estimate the time needed for it to reach 4g/l. µ=0.5 /h.
b. What is the time needed for cell concentration to double in the log phase.

Part 2: Bioreactor design

1. Compare the performance (residence time to achieve 90% conversion) in a plug flow
reactor and in a continuous stirred tank reactor for a first-order reaction.
2. S(of volume 100 m3, feed concentration is 0.15 mol/l, µmax = 0.15/min and Ks = 0.25 mol/l.
3. The inflow and outflow BOD to a reactor are 280 and 20 mg/l. Determine the reactor
volume for a flow of 2 million m 3/day and active solids concentration of 250 mg/l. Y =
0.66, µmax = 3.5/day, Ks = 20 mg/l (the process is aerobic and assume there is no
deactivation).
4. Estimate the maximum flow to a reactor of size 10,000 m3. Decrease in BOD desired is
from 1000 to 20 mg/l (Y = 0.45, µmax= 2.4/day, Ks = 90 mg/l). Active solids concentration
is 400 mg/l.
5. If the fraction of product recycled back to the reactor is 0.25, how many days are required
to achieve the same decrease in substrate amount?
6. Determine the volume a CSTR to produce 1000 kg/h of product. The conversion is 99%
and the feed concentration = 1 kg/m3. µmax = 2.5×104/m3 catalyst/s and Ks = 5.5×103 kg/m3.
Reactor contains 0.15 m3 catalyst per m3 of reactor volume.
7. Estimate the number of CSTRs needed in series of the same volume to achieve a reduction
in concentration form 40 mol/l to 2 mol/l if the organism follows Monod kinetics with µ max
and Ks = 0.45/min and 0.2 mol/l, respectively, when the dilution rate is 80% of the wash-
out rate.
8. Estimate the exit cell concentration in a CSTR, for a feed substrate concentration of 20
mol/l, if the dilution rate is 70%, 75%, 80%, 85%, and 90% of the washout rates. Comment

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 on the results. The organism follows Monod kinetics with µmax and Ks equal to 0.66/min
and 0.22 mol/l, respectively.

Part 3: Downstream process

1. A piece of lignin 30 mm in thickness is dried from initial moisture content (X 1) of 25% to
final (Xf) of 5% using totally dry air. If the diffusivity of water through lignin (D) = 8×10 -6
cm2/s, determine the drying time. The drying time is given by:
t = (4 s2/π2 D) ln (8X1/ π2Xf ). s is one-half of the slab thickness.
2. What separation technique should one adopt for separating two biomolecules having sizes
15 and 22 Å and isoelectric pH of 4.6 and 5.2? Justify your response.
3. If 100 moles of a mixture of 80 mol% ethanol and the rest water is distilled in a batch
process, what will be the composition of the mixture in the reboiler after 50% of the
ethanol has been removed? What will be the composition of the mixture collected as the
overhead product?
4. Carbon dioxide is removed from air in a continuous absorption column using ethanol
amine solution. The airflow rate is 250 kg/h. Air enters at 0.65 g CO2/kg of air and leaves
at 0.2 g CO2/kg of air. Amine enters with 0.002 g CO2/kg of amine and leaves at 0.5 g
CO2/kg of amine. Calculate the amine flow rate.
5. An aqueous methanol solution containing 20% by weight methanol is fed into a continuous
distillation column at the rate of 1000 kg/h. If the desire product purity is 99% at the top of
the column, what will be the bottoms flow rate if the aim is to recover at least 80%of the
methanol entering the column as the top product?
6. Initially porous solids dry at constant drying rate. Once the moisture content of the
material reaches a critical value, the drying rate falls logarithmically. The equation for
drying time is given by the equation:
t = [Ms/ARc][(X1 -Xc) + Xc ln (Xc/X2)]
Estimate the drying time to dry 200 kg material (M s) from initial moisture content (X 1) of
15% to a final moisture content (X 2) of 4%. The exposed area (A) is 20 cm 2, and the
maximum rate of drying (Rc) is 0.009 kg/cm2/s. The critical moisture content (X c) for this
material is 9%.
7. If the maximum solubility of a solute in a solvent is 0.05 kg/kg of solvent. How much
solvent is needed to extract 90% of the solute from a polymeric waste of 10,000 kg
containing 10% solute?