How are Enzymes made?

The starting point for enzyme production is a vial of a selected strain of microorganisms. They will be nurtured and fed until they multiply many thousand times. Then the desired end-product is recovered from the fermentation broth and sold as a standardised product.

A single bacteria or fungus is able to produce only a very small portion of the enzyme, but billions microorganisms, however, can produce large amounts of enzyme. The process of multiplying microorganisms by millions is called fermentation. Fermentation to produce industrial enzymes starts with a vial of dried or frozen microorganisms called a production strain.

One very important aspect of fermentation is sterilisation. In order to cultivate a particular production strain, it is first necessary to eliminate all the native microorganisms present in the raw materials and equipment. If proper sterilisation is not done, other wild organisms will quickly outnumber the production strain and no production will occur.

The production strain is first cultivated in a small flask containing nutrients. The flask is placed in an incubator, which provides the optimal temperature for the microorganism cells to germinate. Once the flask is ready, the cells are transferred to a seed fermenter, which is a large tank containing previously sterilised raw materials and water known as the medium. Seed fermentation allows the cells to reproduce and adapt to the environment and nutrients that will be encountered later on.

After the seed fermentation, the cells are transferred to a larger tank, the main fermenter, where fermentation time, temperature, pH and air are controlled to optimise growth. When this fermentation is complete, the mixture of cells, nutrients and enzymes, called the broth, is ready for filtration and purification.

Filtration and purification termed as downstream processing is done after enzyme fermentation. The enzymes are extracted from the fermentation broth by various chemical treatments to ensure efficient extraction, followed by removal of the broth using either centrifugation or filtration. Followed by a series of other filtration processes, the enzymes are finally separated from the water using an evaporation process.

After this the enzymes are formulated and standardised in form of powder, liquid or granules.

At Maps, we believe that our enzyme products should have a stable activity, storage comfort and most importantly be safe to use.