Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Kraft and Sulfite Pulps: What Is the Best Cellulosic Substrate for Industrial Saccharification?

Sulfite and kraft pulping are two principal methods of industrial delignification of wood. In recent decades, those have been considered as possibilities to pretreat recalcitrant wood lignocellulosics for the enzymatic hydrolysis of polysaccharides and the subsequent fermentation of obtained sugars to valuable bioproducts. Current work compares chemistry and technological features of two different cooking processes in the preparation of polysaccharide substrates for deep saccharification with P. verruculosum glycosyl hydrolases. Bleached kraft and sulfite pulps were subjected to hydrolysis with enzyme mixture of high xylanase, cellobiohydrolase, and beta-glucosidase activities at a dosage of 10 FPU/g of dry pulp and fiber concentration of 2.5, 5, and 10%. HPLC was used to analyze soluble sugars after hydrolysis and additional acid inversion of oligomers to monosaccharides. Kraft pulp demonstrated higher pulp conversion after 48 h (74-99%), which mostly resulted from deep xylan hydrolysis. Sulfite-pulp hydrolysates, obtained in similar conditions due to higher hexose concentration (more than 50 g/L), had higher fermentability for industrial strains producing alcohols, microbial protein, or organic acids. Along with saccharification, enzymatic modification of non-hydrolyzed residues occurred, which led to decreased degree of polymerization and composition changes in two industrial pulps. As a result, crystallinity of kraft pulp increased by 1.3%, which opens possibilities for obtaining new types of cellulosic products in the pulp and paper industry. The high adaptability and controllability of enzymatic and fermentation processes creates prospects for the modernization of existing factories.