Cellulose morphology and enzymatic reactivity: a modified solute exclusion technique

Abstract

An expeditious and accurate simplification of Stone and Scallan's solute exclusion technique was developed, thereby avoiding several sources of experimental error coupled with the determination of cellulose pore volume. Using this method, it is shown that cellulolytic enzymes do not enter into the micropores of five studied celluloses. These results suggestes that hydrolysis occurs initially at the external surface of the fibers. This surface area was calculated with the help of adsorption isotherms of bovine serum albumin. The obtained values for the different samples agree with the microscopically observed cellulose morphology. The correlation obtained by several authors relating cellulose porosity and its digestibility is explained as a consequence of the lower crystallinity and easier fragmentation of the more porous celluloses during hydrolysis.