Parametric optimization on acid hydrolysis of ozone pre-Treated oil palm empty fruit bunch for enhanced glucose production

Glucose synthesized from biomass resources has been investigated by adopting the "waste-To-wealth"creation. Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch (OPEFB) is an abundant lignocellulosic biomass which can be easily accessible in Malaysia. OPEFB has high cellulose content that can be converted into higher value-Added chemicals and biofuels. Ethanol can be produced using fermentable sugar such as glucose derived from OPEFB. Prior to the production of glucose, the biomass pre-Treatment process is significantly important to extract the cellulose component from OPEFB. Ozonolysis pre-Treatment appears as a green technique for isolating cellulose components as it can effectively remove lignin and hemicellulose components with zero-waste and minimal detrimental effects on cellulose structures. In this study, the production of glucose from ozone pre-treated OPEFB via acid hydrolysis process was optimized. A 3-factor 3-level Box-Behnken design (BBD) by Design Expert® software was employed to determine the optimum conditions of two-staged acid hydrolysis process for converting ozone pre-Treated OPEFB to glucose. The optimum conditions of the first stage acid hydrolysis were obtained using 70% H2SO4 concentration at 45°C for 90 minutes with glucose yield of 28.6434%. The physiochemical properties of synthesized glucose were characterized using chemical composition, chemical structure, pH, refractive index and glucose yield were characterized by Thermal Gravimetric Analyzer (TGA), Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR FT-IR) Spectroscopy, pH meter, refractometer and One Touch Select Plus home blood-glucose meter. The hydrolysate from OPEFB has similar functional groups of O-H stretching at 3263cm-1 for untreated OPEFB while at 3266cm-1 for treated OPEFB. Other than that, there was also presence of C-H stretching (2360cm-1), CO ether link vibrations (1193-1197cm-1) and CO vibrations alcohol (1051cm-1) for both treated and untreated OPEFB after undergoing acid hydrolysis and chemical formula C6H12O6 as glucose standard. The pH (1.23) and refractive index (1.338) of glucose were also obtained. The optimum conditions of acid hydrolysis from ozonated OPEFB for glucose production has been discovered and can contribute to the field of studies in the production of glucose for upscaling and commercialization process.