Cellulase Production and Biodeinking of Sorted Office Paper

In the modern era, paper has taken the most important role in the human life. The pulp and paper industry marks uniqueness with respect to the noble product coming out of it in the form of paper. Depletion of forest resources compels the paper industries for waste paper recycling. Deinking of sorted office paper (SOP) is very difficult by conventional techniques. Toner particles produced during conventional repulping process with high cost chemicals are too large to be removed by the flotation and washing processes and are a major technical obstacle for greater use of these varieties. The effect of various enzymes concoctions reduces dirt counts and ERIC values and improved pulp brightness and deinkability of SOP. Enzymes concoctions also reduce ink particles size in terms of number of specks and number of specks/cm3 and stickies. The increased surface roughness determined by AFM and SEM techniques is due to ink detachment and FTIR validates the deinking efficiency due to disappearance of various bands after deinking. A mixture of enzymes containing cellulase, xylanase, amylase and lipase in presence of surfactant during deinking is effective to produce writing and printing grades.