Catalysts Poster

The coating treatment of starch serves to make the surface of paper sufficiently smooth and strong, to improve the writing quality of the paper. In addition, the quality, erasability, stiffness and strength of the paper improve with the treatment.

Use of Amylase in the Paper Industry

Equation

Amylase is an enzyme that helps the digestion of starch. Its application in the paper industry is extremely important since paper is used all over the world.

Amylase is generally found in the saliva of humans as well as other mammals; it is also produced in the pancreas

The Paper Industry:

Anselme Payen

Conservative treatment of prints involves filtered water baths of alkaline pH with calcium hydroxide.

Salivary glands (left) Pancreas (below)

Amylase was the first enzyme to be discovered and isolated (by Anselme Payen in 1833)

The smallest glucose subunit is maltose, a type of sugar, and it would be impossible to bind cellulose fibres with sugars.

Careers in the Paper Industry:-Millwright-Pipefitter-Infrastructure Administrator

Background

Discovery

Appearance

An enzyme is a substance produced by a living organism that acts as a catalyst to speed up a specific chemical reaction.

Production

The pulp and paper industry is comprised of companies that use wood as raw material and produces pulp, paper, and other cellulose-based products.

Background

The use of α-amylases in the pulp and paper industry is for the modification of starch used for coated paper. Since the viscosity of natural starch is too high, alpha amylase is used to degrade it until it is appropriate for use in the industry.

The residual adhesive which remained on the surface of the print paper was removed with an alpha amylase enzyme applied in a buffer solution

Starch + Amylase → Sugars (maltose)

Includes starch treated with amylase

The Process

The paper industry uses liquefying amylases on the starch used in paper coating. In this application, breakage into the smallest glucose subunits is actually undesirable.

Application

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It adds 2 H+ ions at each linkage between the glucose units to break them apart

Amylase works by breaking the linkages between the β-glucose units

Amylase (above) is composed of proteins shown as strands (different colours equal different domains), as well as a calcium ion (yellow) and a chloride ion (green)

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