Hidrólise enzimática da polpa celulósica de Eucalyptus dunnii para oportunidades de biorrefinaria

Abstract

The production of ethanol from cellulose pulping industries is an important proposal for the country's economic development and that challenges researchers to seek more efficient technologies that enable the transformation of these industries in biorefineries. There needs to be studied and made possible new sources and new processes to obtain ethanol, and one of the alternatives is the use of lignocellulosic material. This study aims to carry out the enzymatic hydrolysis of Kraft unbleached pulp of the pulp and paper industry with subsequent use of the product of hydrolysis to form paper. The enzymatic hydrolysis was performed with the enzyme cocktail Cellic® CTec2 to 6% in an incubator under the temperature of 50 ° C, pH 5.0-5.5 and 250 rpm. Samples were prepared in triplicate using the ratio of 1.5 grams of pulp into 10 ml of sterile buffer solution beforehand. In the hydrolysis were tested different times of 0.5 h, 1 h, 1.7 h, 3 h, 6 h, 16 h, 24 h, 48 h and 72 h incubation. The solid product of hydrolysis was used for forming the paper and the liquid was separated for the determination of sugars by anion exchange chromatography. For larger hydrolysis times was obtained a higher conversion pulp into glucose (34.6%) and xylose (47.2%), respectively. Both for bleached paper and for the unbleached was a decrease in tensile strength (43.2% and 51.3%, respectively), the overflow (41.8% and 16.2%) and the groove (82, 4% and 82.3% respectively) compared to the paper pulp in nature when the pulp passes used by a higher hydrolysis time (6 h). For paper production, the ideal times were minor, up to 3 hours. For the manufacture of paper after hydrolysis times higher, one must add up to 20% unhydrolyzed cellulosic pulp. Using optical microscopy clearly be observed that after 6 hours of enzymatic hydrolysis occurs visible degradation of the cellulose fiber.