Mature pods of Leucaena leucocephala (Lam.) de Wit were utilized as raw material for nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) production. NCC’s isolation begins with L. leucocephala fiber’s alkaline treatment with sodium hydroxide, followed by bleaching treatment at three different percentages (3%, 5%, and 7%) of sodium hypochlorite. Acid hydrolysis was then conducted to obtain NCC, which was comprehensively characterized in terms of morphology, chemical functional groups, whiteness index, and crystallinity. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and chemical composition results showed that alkali treatment (NaOH) and bleaching (3%, 5%, and 7% of sodium hypochlorite, NaClO) were effective in the removal of lignin and hemicellulose. The variation of sodium hypochlorite concentration affected physical and structural characteristics of the NCC produced, which exhibited a rod-shaped structure with diameters ranging from 17 to 49 nm. These observations provide insight into the potential utilization of L. leucocephala as raw material for preparing nanocellulose, which may address problems of the underutilized mature pods.

In this study, extracted cellulose fibres were successfully isolated from Leucaena leucocephala pods through an efficient alkaline treatment and bleaching method using different bleaching agents such as 5 wt.% of sodium chlorite (NaClO2), 5 wt.% of oxalic acid (C2H2O4), 5 wt.% of potassium permanganate (KMnO4) and 5 wt.% of sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), respectively. The functional group of the cellulose fibres were analysed by using attenuated total reflection infrared (ATR-IR) spectroscopy. The ATR-IR spectra reported that the Leucaena leucocephala fibres after being given chemical treatment with 5%w/w of NaClO lead the similar functional group with the commercial cellulose due to removal hemicellulose and lignin. The content cellulose of final product was 89.4% was measured by the chemical composition test. Meanwhile, the whiteness index of Leucaena leucocephala fibres treated with 5 wt.% NaClO was 78.5%, which was the highest. The results of ATR-IR, chemical composition test and whiteness index were indicated that the sample of Leucaena leucocephala pods presents the structure of cellulose.

Chitosan was extracted from Leucaena leucocephala (LL) pods collected from three locations in west coast Malaysia. The primary objectives of this study were to extract and characterized the extracted chitosan pectin from LL pods. Besides that, the physicochemical properties of extracted chitosan were determined and compared with the commercial chitosan. Chitosan A extracted from LL pods gave a higher percentage of yield compared to chitosan B, 70.9% and 67.6%, respectively. Besides that, the color analysis and whiteness index of both extracted chitosan were evaluated. From the data obtained, chitosan B has higher whiteness index, which is 61.6% and chitosan A was only 48.5%. Based on this study, it can be concluded that decolorization treatment with method B produced chitosan with a higher percentage of whiteness index compared to decolorization treatment with method A.

The effect of banana cell wall on dough hardness and toughness with 10% fat reduction was investigated. Alcohol insoluble solids containing cell wall (AIS) was prepared from ripe bananas using hot ethanol extraction. Analysis of AIS for monosaccharide composition showed that it contains fucose, rhamnose, arabinose, galactose, glucose, maltose, xylose and mannose, galacturonic acid and glucuronic acid. Changes in hardness and toughness of the dough were analysed using a texture analyser. As the fat content decreased by 10%, the dough hardness was increased to 52.63 N ± 6.33 compared to control (31.29 N ± 2.34). However, the dough hardness was then reduced to 28.36 N ± 3.11 when 0.5 g of banana AIS was added to the dough and this indicates that banana AIS helps to reduce the hardness caused by fat reduction. Similar results were obtained for dough toughness. The addition of banana AIS decreased toughness to 48.16N.sec ±7.54 from 79.99N.sec ± 1.85 in fat reduced dough. In conclusion, banana cell wall has beneficial effects on dough rheology in fat reduced cookie dough.