2003 Volume 32 Issue 6 Pages 495-501
We studied on the basic conditions for conversion of reducing sugars obtained by hydrolyzing of used-shredded plain copy sheets with industrial crude cellulase E-CEL to hydrogen using a hydrogen-producing bacterial strain Clostridium beijerinckii AM21B.
In this study, 39.6 g of used-shredded plain copy sheets were hydrolyzed at a temperature of 45°C, in 400 me of acetate buffer, pH 4.5, and 2, 790 mg of cellulase continuously for 120 hours and yielded 26.72 g of reducing sugars which was equivalent to 67.5% of the shredded plain copy sheets.
The hydrogen-producing bacterial strain AM21B was inoculated to one liter of PY medium containing 5 g of the reducing sugars, and incubated at 37°C. Hydrogen was generated after 1 to 2 hr of culture, the amount of hydrogen produced per hr reaching its maximum after 6 to 7 hr of culture, so that a total amount of hydrogen produced was 2, 719 ml from 5 g of glucose as a control and 3, 953 ml from 5 g of the hydrolysate from shredded copy sheets.
These results showed that the used-shredded plain copy sheets should be possible to convert to hydrogen by hydrolyzing the copy sheets using hydrogen-producing bacteria without combustion, if an inexpensive, industrial grade crude cellulase (s) would be readily available.
