Behaviour of two main portuguese wood species towards enzymatic hydrolysis

This paper presents the influence of cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic enzymes on the papermaking properties of pulps from Eucalyptus globulus and Pinus pinaster wood species from Portugal. It was shown that these enzymes increased the delignification efficiency and degraded the cellulose macromolecules, having effects on the fiber strength. Thus, it was found that these treatments decreased strongly the burst index, but increased significantly the tearing properties. The zero span tensile strength was also affected, especially for Eucalyptus globulus pulps. Finally, these treatments were found to increase the brightness of the treated pulps