Organoslov pretreatment of oil palm trunk for enzymatic hydrolysis

Abstract

Oil palm trunk (OPT) an abundant agriculture waste was evaluated as an alternative lignocellulosic biomass resource for bioethanol production. Organosolv pretreatment was applied to the OPT to enhance its enzymatic saccharification. The pretreatment conditions were optimized through a designed experiment within the ranges of temperature 170–190ºC, time for 30 min, 40–60% Ethanol, and initial H₂SO₄ concentrations 1–3% (w/w). The overall saccharides (hexoses and pentoses) recovery of organosolv pretreated was 66.1%. Organosolv pretreatment removed 18.2% lignin and 93.9% xylose from the OPT as ethanol in the liquor with great potential for co-product development, which were the main reasons why the organosolv pretreatment could enhance the enzymatic hydrolysis of the OPT. The results indicated that 100% of the cellulose in the pretreated OPT with 3% H₂SO₄, 50% Ethanol at 170ºC was enzymatically hydrolyzed to glucose within 48 h both a cellulase loading of 15 FPU/g cellulose and ß-glucosidase (30 CBU/g, Cellobiase Units, per gram cellulose) with overall glucose yield was 61.4%.