Temperature, Solid Loading and Time Effects on Recovery of Sugar from OPEFB

Biorefinery industry used lignocellulosic biomass as the raw material. Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch (OPEFB) is one of Indonesian potential lignocellulosic biomass, which consists of hemicellulose with xylan as the main component. Xylitol production via fermentation could use this xylan since it can be converted into xylose. However, the structure of OPEFB is such that hemicellulose is protected in a way that will hinder hydrolysis enzyme to access it. Considering that hemicellulose is more susceptible to heat than cellulose, a hydrothermal process was applied to pre-treat OPEFB before it was hydrolyzed enzymatically. The aim of the research is to map the effect of temperature, solid loading and time of pre-treatment process to obtain and recover as much as possible accessible hemicellulose from OPEFB. The results showed that temperature gave more significant effect than time and solid loading for glucose recovery of OPEFB residues. While xylose recovery varies greatly with temperature, but solid loading and time gave less significant effect.