Optimization of enzymatic hydrolysis for ethanol production by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of wastepaper

The present study investigated the development of high sugar production by optimization of an enzymatic hydrolysis process using both conventional and statistical methods, as well as the production of ethanol by the selected wastepaper source. Among four sources of pretreated wastepaper including office paper, newspaper, handbills and cardboard, office paper gave the highest values of cellulose (87.12%) and holocelluloses (89.07%). The effects of the amount of wastepaper, the pretreatment method and the type of enzyme on reducing sugar production from office paper were studied using conventional methods. The highest reducing sugar production (1851.28 µg L −1 ; 37.03% conversion of glucose) was obtained from the optimal condition containing 40 mg of office paper, pretreated with stream explosion and hydrolysed with the combination of cellulase from Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma viride at the fixed loading rate of 20 FPU g −1 sample. The effects of interaction of wastepaper amount and enzyme concentration as well as incubation time were studied by a statistical method using central composite design. The optimal medium composition consisted of 43.97 µg L −1 , 28.14 FPU g −1 sample and 53.73 h of wastepaper, enzyme concentration and incubation time, respectively, and gave the highest amount of sugar production (2184.22 µg L −1 ) and percentage conversion of glucose (43.68%). The ethanol production from pretreated office paper using Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a simultaneous saccharification and fermentation process was 21.02 g L −1 after 36 h of cultivation, corresponding to an ethanol volumetric production rate of 0.58 g ethanol L −1  h −1 .