Hydrolysis of Pulp with Cellulase

Abstract

Recently, cellulose hydrolytic enzyme, cellulase, has been provided in semi-commercial scale, and it is desired to find some uses. In this paper, to study the feature of the reaction, the phenomena of the hydrolysis of bleached sulfite pulp with commercial cellulase were compared with those with hydrochloric acid. The results were as follows : 1) The difference was shown between the amounts of the part resist to acid hydrolysis and that to enzymatic one. The former was more than 80%, and the latter was less than 70%. 2) The rate of enzymatic hydrolysis of the pulps, each yield being 81% and 55%, prepared with enzymatic treatment, were somewhat lower than that of original pulp. But, in the case of acid hydrolysis of the pulps pretreated with enzyme, two different results were obtained. When the pulp slightly pretreated with enzyme, the rate of hydrolysis decreased, but it increased when it was prehydrolysed up to a certain extent, as compared with that of the original pulp. 3) Nevertheless the shape of the distribution curve and the average DP of the pulp changed remarkably with acid hydrolysis, very small changes were merely observed when the pulp was treated with enzyme. 4) Whereas pulp fiber was changed easely into fine powder with acid hydrolysis, the changes of the fiber in length and width with enzymatic hydeolysis were very small.