Sonoenzymatic decolourization of an azo dye employing immobilized horse radish peroxidase (HRP): a mechanistic study.

For degradation of biorefractory pollutants, enzymatic treatments and sonochemical treatments have shown high potential. A combined technique of sono-enzymatic treatment is of special interest as it has shown enhancement effect than the individual techniques. This work has attempted to give a mechanistic insight into the interaction of sonochemical and enzymatic treatments using immobilized horseradish peroxidase (HRP) enzyme on the decolourization of acid red dye (an azo dye). In order to segregate the effect of ultrasound and cavitation, experiments were conducted at elevated static pressure. The kinetic parameters of HRP, viz. Vmax and Km were marginally affected by immobilization. There was a minor change in pH optima and temperature optima for immobilized HRP (6.5, 25°C) from free HRP (7.0, 20-25°C). Though the specific activity of free enzyme (0.272U/mg) was found to be higher than the immobilized enzyme (0.104U/mg), immobilized enzyme exhibited higher stability (up to 3 cycles) and degradation potential than free enzyme in all experiments. The results revealed that the coupling of sonication and enzymatic treatment at high pressure in presence of polyethylene glycol (PEG) yielded the highest decolourization of acid red (61.2%). However, the total decolourization achieved with combined technique was lesser than the sum of individual techniques, indicating negative synergy between the sonochemical and enzymatic techniques.