Enzyme technology is best described as the technology associated with the application of enzymes as the tools of industry, agriculture and medicine. Although the earliest reports concerning exploitation of enzymes were documented in the late 1800’s, true industrial application on enzymes only began in earnest in the late 1960’s. The majority of enzymes used in industrial/biotechnological applications are derived from particular fungi (Aspergillus) and bacteria (bacillus). Safe organisms must be used for customer-related applications. Enzymes are proteins and are nature’s own biocatalysts. Enzymes are produced by living systems to accelerate and sustain the myriad of chemical reactions necessary to sustain life. More than 3000 enzymes catalysing a wide array of reactions are known to exist. The disintegration of foodstuffs to amino acids, sugars, and lipids is normally accomplished within 3-6 hours, depending on the amount and type of food. In the absence of enzymes, hydrolysis by digestive enzymes would take more than 30 years. Enzymes have many advantages over their chemical counterparts in that they are more specific, and generally posse’s high catalytic properties.

Enzymes have also been used in the detergent industry since the mid 1960’s and are probably the best-known application of industrial enzymes especially in laundry products – the so-called “biological” washing powders, liquids and tablets. The main enzyme activity in biological laundry detergents is protease, which acts on organic stains such as grass, blood, egg and human sweat. However, it has become more common in recent years to include a cocktail of enzyme activities including lipases and amylases. Lipases are effective on stains resulting from fatty acids such as oils and fats (and lipsticks!) whilst amylase help remove starchy food deposits. More recently, colour enhancing and ‘anti-bobbling’ washing powders have been developed which contain cellulases. It is thought that the mode of action of such cellulases is to remove detached cellulose fibrils, which cause a progressive dulling of the colour as dirt is trapped on the rough surface of the fabric.

I will now go into some more detail about some of the other uses of enzymes mentioned in the previous paragraph. A very popular use of enzymes is beer brewing, which essentially involves the production of alcohol by the action of yeasts on plant materials such as barley, maize, sorghum, hops and rice. The yeast cells are capable of converting simple sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. However, most of the sugar present in plant materials is in the form of complex polysaccharides such as starch and cannot be readily utilised. Traditionally these nutrients are “released” by the process of malting whereby barley is allowed to partly germinate during which endogenous enzymes are re

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