Study in the activity of commercial lipase, crude banana esterase and crude tomato cellulase and their application in the deinking of laser jet printed paper waste / Nurul Shafika Azmi

The paper industry is one of the most developed, yet the most polluted industry. Waste paper recycling has increased dramatically in recent times, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. The key of recycling process is the successful of the ink removal via deinking process. Considering the concern to the environmental problem cause by the conventional deinking process, enzymes are applied. Three different enzymes are applied in the deinking process of recycling routes. Research conducted utilizes commercial lipase, esterase extracted from Cavendish banana(from Musa gene) and cellulase extracted from Solarium lycopersicum (tomato) to deink laser jet printed paper. These enzymes were characterized using different physical parameters; temperature, pH value, concentration and shaking rate via enzymes assay to develop new appropriate environment for maximum ink removal which facilitated by enzymes hydrolysis and floatation process. Result showed all of the enzymes have great potential with crude cellulase was superior compared to the commercial lipase and crude esterase. The highest enzymatic activity of cellulase was6.714U/mL, compared to 2.553U/mL for lipase and 1.819U/mL for esterase, with brighter and cleaner paper produced. The successful of the enzymes application showed on morphological changes by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) which was very satisfying and brightness analysis increased up to 72% for celllulase, 48%for lipase and 39% for esterase. In conclusion, crude extracted cellulase had the highest potential to be apply in biodeinking process compared to crude extracted lipase and commercial lipase.