Bioconversion of wastepaper to sugars by cellulase from Aspergillus niger, Trichoderma viride and Penicillium funiculosum

Wastepaper materials are a major component of organic waste and its cellulose section can be bioconverted to sugars by cellulase, a complex enzyme system, present in microorganisms. Cellulase from Trichoderma viride, Aspergillus niger and Penicillium funiculosum were incubated with used newspaper, office paper, filter paper and foolscap paper and the resulting total reducing sugars, determined. Every paper material showed different susceptibilities for each cellulase with T. viride cellulase exhibited the highest activity on all these waste cellulose materials. Milling of the cellulose materials into a fine structure prior to enzymatic treatment increased the extent of saccharification of all paper materials by every cellulase. Mixtures of these cellulases caused a further increase in degradation although not all mixtures could exceed the hydrolytic action of sole T. viride cellulase.