Ethanol/water pulps from sugar cane straw and their biobleaching with xylanase from Bacillus pumilus

Author： Moriya Regina Gonçalves Adilson Duarte Marta

ISSN： 0273-2289

Source： Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Vol.137, Iss.1, 2007-12, pp. : 501-513

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Abstract

The influence of independent variables (temperature and time) on the cooking of sugar cane straw with ethanol/water mixtures was studied to determine operating conditions that obtain pulp with high cellulose contents and a low lignin content. An experimental 2² design was applied for temperatures of 185 and 215°C, and time of 1 and 2.5 h with the ethanol/water mixture concentration and constant straw-to-solvent ratio. The system was scaled-up at 200°C cooking temperature for 2 h with 50% ethanol-water concentration, and 1:10 (w/v) straw-to-solvent ratio to obtain a pulp with 3.14 cP viscosity, 58.09 kappa-number, and the chemical composition of the pulps were 3.2% pentosan and 31.5% lignin. Xylanase from Bacillus pumilus was then applied at a loading of 5–150 IU/g dry pulp in the sugar cane straw ethanol/water pulp at 50°C for 2 and 20 h. To ethanol/water pulps, the best enzyme dosage was found to be 20 IU/g dry pulp at 20 h, and a high enzyme dosage of 150 IU/g dry pulp did not decrease the kappa-number of the pulp.