Published: October 5, 2022
Q: We have started using Tergazyme for our filter cleaning application and it is working great. What would you recommend for Tergazyme enzyme deactivation?
A: Thank you for your email and wonderful to hear that Tergazyme® Enzyme-Active Powdered Detergent is working for your cleaning needs!
Realistically speaking the enzyme will get deactivated by anything that is out of bounds of its normal working parameters. Using hypochlorite is certainly one of the fastest ways of achieving this. But excessive heat (hotter than 60C/140F), or very mismatched pH parameters (discussed below) will achieve the same result. Using heat you could reliably deactivate the enzyme by exposing it to 70C/160F for at least 1 hour.
Deactivation via pH would be easier using acid rather than base, the enzyme will denature at higher pH (13 and up), but is significantly easier to denature using acids (pH = 4 and below). For reference, at pH = 4 the enzyme shows virtually no activity after 30 minutes of exposure. Even lower pH should cause deactivation considerably faster.
Often the use of the solution in the filter cleaning or other cleaning application will deactivate the enzyme and can be considered an orthogonal method to any formal deactivation procedure. In other words, there should not be very much protease left in a used Tergazyme detergent solution to begin with.
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