Cloth bioreactor containing yeast cells immobilized on cotton cloth using polythylenimine

Summary Yeast cells were immobilized by adhesion to cotton cloth using polyethylenimine. Yeast cells could be adhered to cotton cloth by coating either the yeast cells or cotton cloth or both with polyethylenimine. Adhered cells were not desorbed by washing with 1 M KCl or 50% (v/v) ethylene glycol or 0.1 M buffers pH 3.6–8.0. Also presence of salt (1 M) in the cell suspension was not found to alter the binding capacity of the cells. The yeast cell bound cloth was used in a specially designed frame reactor (2.3 L) for the repeated inversion of sucrose in 16 batches over a period of 3 weeks still retaining about 80% of the original invertase activity.