The Influence of Temperature, Time and Initial Heating on Enzymatic Hydrolysis of a Used Paper to Produce Glucose

Abstract

Glucose is one of materials that can be used to produce ethanol. Ethanol is an alternative fuel to potentially anticipate the reduction of petroleum oil. Discussion about the decline of Indonesia’s oil reserves due to the rising demand of fuel oil has been frequently conducted. Related to this, a number of researches have been carried out to find alternative materials that can be used to produce fuel. In agricultural country, there are many waste of agriculture product. Agricultural wastes containing cellulose are materials that can be used for producing glucose; however, these materials still contain many impurities, such as lignin. The presence of lignin will inhibit the enzyme to hydrolyze cellulose, so the lignin must be removed first. This study investigates the possibility of utilizing paper waste to produce glucose. Paper waste is selected because the paper contains very high cellulose since some impurities such as a lignin have been removed during pulping process. The research was preceded by drying of paper waste to evaluate the water contain. After that, weighing 5 grams of dried waste paper and added by 200 mL of water was pulverized by using a blender. The water in this mixture was separated and the pulp was hydrolyzed using cellulose enzyme to obtain glucose. Enzymatic hydrolysis started by adding 0.7 g of cellulose enzyme, water and H2SO4 to maintain the pH to be 6 in the pulp. Hydrolysis was carried out at various temperature, namely at 45oC, 40oC, 35oC and at room temperature. The results showed that at the beginning of the process, hydrolysis was carried out at high temperatures produced more glucose. However, when the process was continued, a process at higher temperatures decreases the rate of glucose production. Based on the research result, it can be concluded that hydrolysis of waste paper will produce the highest glucose, if hydrolysis is run at ambient temperature. Treatment by preheating for 1 hour at 40oC can increase the yield of glucose.