Strategy to enhance the sugar production using recyclable inorganic salt for pre-treatment of oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB)

Abstract

Inorganic salts were used for the pretreatment of oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) to enhance the delignification and saccharification yield of OPEFB. The sequential pretreatment of OPEFB using sodium phosphate dodecahydrate (Na3PO4.12H2O) and zinc chloride (ZnCl2) proved to be an effective approach. OPEFB was delignified by 58.8%, producing a maximum total reducing sugar (TRS) yield of 0.97 g/g under optimum pretreatment conditions of 15% Na3PO4.12H2O, 60 min (30 min/stage) pretreatment time, 10% solid to liquid ratio, and pretreatment temperature of 121 °C. In addition, structural and morphological analysis of the pretreated OPEFB using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and X- ray diffraction (X-RD) revealed major structural changes, such as the generation of porous structure, which allows for better enzyme accessibility. Moreover, recycle experiments showed encouraging findings, as the spent pretreatment liquid with pH adjustment can be recycled efficiently for at least 5 times without a substantial decrease in its effectiveness.

Advances in succinic acid production: the enhancement of CO2 fixation for the carbon sequestration benefits

“…And Chen et al developed an in-situ semi-simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation process to produce SA from sugarcane bagasse, which could obtain 41.0 g/L SA with a CFR of 0.0921 g/L/h ( Chen et al, 2021 ). Hassan et al pretreated the oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) with inorganic salts to improve its delignification and saccharification yields and obtained a large amount of total reducing sugar ( Hassan et al, 2020 ). Based on the inorganic salt pretreatment of OPEFB, SA is produced through SSF, with a production of 65.2 g/L and a yield of 0.650 g/g OPEFB ( Khairil Anwar et al, 2021 ).…”

Improvement of residual oil recovery from oil palm biomass using high pressure water steam system for biodiesel production

“…Latip et al (2019) and Mensah et al (2019) investigated the usage of OPEFB fibers for reinforced biocomposites, while Padzil et al (2020) reviewed the potential application of nanocelluloses from OPEFB for hydrogels production. Due to its high holocelluloses and calorific content, OPEFB has proved to be a great source for sugar and bioenergy production (Ibrahim et al 2015a;Hassan et al 2020). However, all these bioconversion processes will be hindered because of the presence of residual oil on the surface of OPEFB.…”

Ionic solution pretreatment of oil palm empty fruit bunch to produce sugars

“…The first type is to de-polymerize lignocellulose directly without differentiating its components and only regard biomass as a mixture of C, H, and O elements; the degraded products are still complex and require an upgrading process; the methods used usually include gasification and thermal pyrolysis (Li and Chen 2018;Ferreira et al 2020). The second type of conversion involves fractionation of lignocellulose biomass to lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose (Hassan et al 2020). Pretreatment is the most important process in the bioconversion of lignocellulose for sugars production.…”

“…Recently, the trend to use ionic solutions, such as ZnCl2, and FeCl3 aqueous solutions, in the pretreatment of biomass for producing value-added product such as bioethanol has become attractive. An ionic solution has the ability to increase cellulose and hemicellulose conversion rates as well as improve hydrolysis yields (Liu et al 2009;Hassan et al 2020). Additionally, inorganic salt solutions are less corrosive and can achieve higher rate of enzymatic digestibility than inorganic acids and it can be recycled (Liu et al 2009;Kamireddy et al 2013;Hassan et al 2020).…”

“…An ionic solution has the ability to increase cellulose and hemicellulose conversion rates as well as improve hydrolysis yields (Liu et al 2009;Hassan et al 2020). Additionally, inorganic salt solutions are less corrosive and can achieve higher rate of enzymatic digestibility than inorganic acids and it can be recycled (Liu et al 2009;Kamireddy et al 2013;Hassan et al 2020). A Lewis acid, such as FeCl3, has been proposed to be the most effective inorganic salt that can replace acid pretreatment (Liu et al 2009;Zhu et al 2020).…”