Presented are initial studies aimed at determining the applicability of various pretreatment methods and existing cellulosic wastes to a process for the conversion of cellulose to glucose and other reducing sugars. In this process, a cellulase from a mutant of Trichoderma viride is used. Pretreatment using differential speed two-roll mills has significantly enhanced the susceptibility of diverse cellulosic substrates such as newspaper, cotton, pine and maple. With processing times of less than ten minutes on a six-inch (roll diameter) mill, hydrolysis yield improvements were two and twelve-fold for newspaper and cotton respectively. Power requirements for processing waste newspaper on a three-inch laboratory mill are estimated to be 20% less than for a commercial ball mill. Anhydrous liquid ammonia treatments of hardwood birch and maple sawdusts rendered them more susceptible to enzymatic hydrolysis than substrates from a softwood source, e.g., white pine and newspaper. A combination of pretreatments, two-roll milling followed by liquid ammonia, affected significant increases in hydrolysis yield for maplewood shavings and hammer milled newspaper.

"EPA-600/7-77-038." "July 1977." "Contract no. EPA-IAG-DS-0758." "Project officer Charles J. Rogers." Includes bibliographical references (pages 33-37).