Saccharification of Pine Needle Biomass using Commercial Cellulase

Abstract

Pine needles impose a problem in hilly regions. Dried pine leaves can cause forest fires or soil erosion. These pine needles are a good source of lignocelluloses which is an important precursor for biofuel production. Biofuels can replace fossil fuels which have become necessary with the increasing pollution and population. Biofuels have low carbon emissions, they are renewable and fuel distribution won't be concentrated to a few particular regions. The problem with biofuels is that we lack the technology to make the production easier although many countries have started production using corn, sugarcane, etc but these are edible materials and we cannot afford to utilize them for large scale production thus the requirement arises to produce biofuels using woody biomass which has high lignocelluloses content. The substrate was collected, washed and pre-treated with sulphuric acid at 0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%, 0.8%, and 1% (v/v) after which incubation, centrifugation, oven dry was done to obtain dried biomass. The incubation time, pH, temperature, and agitation rate was optimized for saccharification of PNB using cellulase. Reducing sugar obtained after saccharification was calculated by plotting a standard curve of glucose. The incubation time 36 h was optimized for cellulase treated PNB at 45oC and cellulase work in the acidic medium thus the maximum amount of reducing sugar was obtained at pH 5.0. There is a lot to explore in the production of bio-fuel and to develop technology and infrastructure.