Hydrolysis of Paper Sludge using Mixed Cellulase

초록

Cellulose waste from the pulp and paper industries is a fine resource of biomass, from which valuable products such as ethanol, organic acid, can be fermented. Only a small efforts have been made to hydrolyze the cellulose waste in a form of paper sludge, comparing to the researches on the hydrolysis of starch. Mixed cellulase, consisted of endo/exo glucanase and β-glucosidase from Trichoderma reesei Rut C-30 and Aspergillus niger, respectively, was employed to hydrolyze the cellulose portion of the paper sludge. The resulting hydrolysate can be used as a substrate for further fermentation to yield various organic products. Experimental studies were performed to obtain the maximum glucose production with the concentration and the ratio of glucanases and β-glucosidase as variables. A mathematical modelling was tried to predict the cellulose hydrolysis in three steps of hydrolysis of crystalline cellulose by endo-cellulase, amorphous cellulose by exo-cellulase and cellobiose by β-glucosidase in a sequence.