Extraction and characterization of hemicellulose from Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches (OPEFB) using alkaline extraction.

Abstract

One of the major categories of solid waste that are regularly produced from palm oil mills is OPEFB. Hemicellulose is a second abundant biopolymer in the OPEFB. One major challenges of hemicellulose extraction is due to its complex and diversified structure. Herein, the extraction process such as alkaline treatment was introduced to extract hemicellulose from OPEFB. The aims of this study are to investigate the effect of NaOH concentration on the hemicellulose yield and subsequently determine the physicochemical properties of hemicellulose from OPEFB.