Journal
PLOS ONE
Volume 10, Issue 6, Pages -Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0128623
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Swiss CTI (innovation promotion agency) Research project Integration of the enzyme laccase in the production of wood fiber insulation boards [11476.2 PFIW-IW]
- Pavatex SA
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Low-density wood fiber insulation boards are traditionally manufactured in a wet process using a closed water circuit (process water). The water of these industrial processes contains natural phenolic extractives, aside from small amounts of admixtures (e.g., binders and paraffin). The suitability of two fungal laccases and one bacterial laccase was determined by biochemical characterization considering stability and substrate spectra. In a series of laboratory scale experiments, the selected commercial laccase from Myceliophtora thermophila was used to catalyze the surface modification of thermo-mechanical pulp (TMP) using process water. The laccase catalyzed the covalent binding of the phenolic compounds of the process water onto the wood fiber surface and led to change of the surface chemistry directly via crosslinking of lignin moieties. Although a complete substitution of the binder was not accomplished by laccase, the combined use of laccase and latex significantly improved the mechanical strength properties of wood fiber boards. The enzymatically-treated TMP showed better interactions with the synthetic binder, as shown by FTIR-analysis. Moreover, the enzyme is extensively stable in the process water and the approach requires no fresh water as well as no cost-intensive mediator. By applying a second-order polynomial model in combination with the genetic algorithm (GA), the required amount of laccase and synthetic latex could be optimized enabling the reduction of the binder by 40%.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available