Cellulase Activity in Different Buffering Media During Waste Paper Hydrolysis by HPLC

Abstract The activity of cellulase has traditionally been described by pH and temperature; however, the buffering medium is also an important factor, Taking plain water as a reference medium, three kinds of buffer including KH2PO4/K5HPO4, citric acid/sodium citrate, and acetic acid/sodium acetate were adopted to survey their effects on the activity of cellulase. Chromatographic assays indicated that xylose, glucose, and cellobiose were the major products and that minor products such as cellotriose and cellotetraose were present in some cases. The activities of cellulase based on glucose production showed that the phosphate buffer acted as a deactivator for cellulase and each of the two organic acid buffers acted as activators for cellulase. The concentration of activation buffer should be high to reach a high cellulase activity; however, this effect would be compensated for by the product inhibition of cellulase. The highest activity obtained was 4.16 ± 0.08 (× 10−3) IU mg−1 for the citric acid/sodium citrate buffer under pH 4.80, 40 °C and an agitation speed of 150 rpm.