An eco-friendly process for xylose production from waste of pulp and paper industry with xylanase catalyst

Abstract

Plentiful waste is generated by pulp and paper industries during different stages of paper production. Current practices being used harm the environment to a large extent and thus, require a sustainable approach to deal with the waste. Thus, present study investigated the effect of xylose production without NaOH and with pre-treated (2% NaOH) waste paper pulp under the effect of temperature; pH and incubation time with the help of xylanase isolated from Bacillus pumilus. A comparative analysis was drawn with three treatments namely enzymatic, xylanase immobilization onto chitosan and microbial treatment. Chitosan being inert, cheap and biocompatible was chosen as carrier and resulted in 94.87% immobilization yield. Optimum parameter for xylose production was found to be temperature 50 °C and pH 6.0. For incubation time, highest xylose production was seen after 12 hrs (enzymatic and chitosan and immobilized) and on 3rd day (microbial). Therefore, treatment of waste paper pulp with xylanase showed significant results for xylose production which later can be used in the production of various value added products such as xylitol.

Keywords

• Xylanase
• Xylose
• Pulp and Paper