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Cheese Making – The use of enzymes in cheese-making is widely known; they are commonly used with bacterial cultures as a way to foster proper flavors’ development and also to increase shelf life by reducing aging times.
The specific types of enzymes which are used in cheese are proteases, lipases, and catalases. Proteases are primarily used because milk naturally contains a protein called caseins which retain the liquid form. The proteases are added to hydrolyze these caseins so the milk is stabilized in liquid form.
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Cleaning/Detergents – A lot of different enzymes are used in cleaning agents and detergents, and they do a lot of jobs, for example: Proteases degrade/break down proteins in the stains, like red wine, soil, and grass stains. Amylases help break down the starch in stains, which can come from things like potatoes. At the present however, only these two enzymes are commonly used; the initiation of lipases has pretty much just come up.
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Fruit Juices – The enzyme pectinase is used in fruit juices to break down the fruit more thoroughly (for things like ‘no-bits’ in the juice). The enzyme is commonly used for fruits like apples, strawberries, grapes and pineapples. What the enzyme does specifically is to break the ‘glue’ that holds the fibers of the fruit together (called pectin).
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Yoghurt – In all types of yoghurt there is an enzyme called lactase; which is produced by the live bacterial cultures. Lactase breaks down the major component in milk, lactose, into two simple sugars. These are glucose and galactose. As a result yoghurt is more easily digested.
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Now, I’m going to talk about the industrial uses of enzymes. As said before at the introduction, enzymes are very important to the industry because of their property to not stop working; being able to do a job without being used up themselves. This ability is why the industry has, and is, using and experimenting with a lot of different enzymes, to be explained in the following:
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Starch Hydrolysis & Fructose Production – Two main enzymes carry out the conversion of starch into glucose; alpha-amylase and fungal enzymes. Fructose is produced from sucrose as a starting material, and then sucrose is split into glucose and more fructose by the enzyme invertase. The fructose is separated and crystallized.
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Textiles – Amylase, Catalase and Lactase are all used to remove the starch and hydrogen peroxide, as well as bleach the textiles and degrade the lignin.
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Animal Feed – The addition of the enzyme xylanase (an enzyme found primarily in plants’ cellulose cell walls, thus not found anywhere in mammals) to a wheat-based broiler feed increases the available metabolizable energy by 7-10% in some studies. The results include increased viscosity (gloopiness or resistance to flow) which increases the rate of absorption of essential nutrients.
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Bioethanol – This is a new type of biofuel produced from starchy plant materials using enzymes capable of efficiently making the conversion. At the present, corn is used as the main source of Bioethanol, but its production is shrinking for this because of rising food prices and the fact that it’s as a food supply it’s being threatened.
Thus new crops such as wheat, bamboo, or other grasses are being experimented with for their ‘biofuel potentials’.
But there is some controversy on the matter; mainly that the actual production of it (accumulating, shipping, refining, and marketing) uses more fossil fuel than it’s saving, effectively rendering it useless. New methods for more efficient ways of producing this biofuel are underway.
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Pulp & Paper – Pulp bleaching involves a substantial amount of xylanase so as to considerably reduce the need for chlorine based bleaching chemicals. The enzyme amylase is used in paper making for the modification of starch. Finally, lipase is used to remove ‘pitch’ from paper machines (a sticky substance present mainly in softwoods and can cause problems with the paper machines).
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Food & Beverage - The use of enzymes in food and drink has been going on a long time; whether it be inadvertently or not. For example, there are a number of enzymes used in the production of wine, beer, vinegar and cheese. The enzymes in the yeast and bacteria were utilized to reduce aging, help clarify or stabilize the product, or help control alcohol and sugar contents. In short, enzymes are used everywhere in all ranges of food and drink.
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Biodegradable Plastics – Plastics manufactured traditionally (by-product of oil) come from non-renewable hydrocarbon resources, which means their structure doesn’t enable them to be broken down easily by micro-organisms.
Enzymes in certain bacteria that can produce granules of plastic in their cells have been cloned as a way to harvest more eco-friendly, degradable plastic. However, their cost is why this method of plastic production has been boycotted. But, since enzymes don’t get used up themselves during their chemical reaction, this process could soon start to become very successful, despite the costs involved.
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Leather – The leather industry uses a lot of proteolytic and lipolytic enzymes to remove unwanted parts of the leather. For example, the dehairing and dewooling processes involve proteases and bacteria together to assist the alkaline chemical process. This results in a more environmentally friendly curing process and also improves the quality of the material.
Bacterial and fungal enzymes are also used to make the leather soft and easier to dye.
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