In this work a kinetic model for the enzymatic conversion of sucrose to glucose and fructose using the free form of the enzyme invertase was studied. The initial rates of conversion of sucrose into glucose and fructose were evaluated for different initial concentrations of sucrose, fructose and glucose. The results of the ?-square test showed that the partially non competitive inhibition model for glucose and for fructose can be used to describe the reaction kinetics with a degree of confidence higher than 99.9%. An analysis of the sum of squares of the residuals for several inhibition models cited in the literature showed that the partially noncompetitive inhibition model is the best one for quantifying the effect of the concentration of glucose and fructose on sucrose hydrolysis. A comparison of a simulation of this model with the experimental results showed that the model can describe well the reaction in a batch reactor using initial concentrations of 600 g/L.
enzymatic conversion; enzyme invertase; sucrose; glucose; fructose
