Evaluation of Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches for Xylitol Production

Abstract

The biological process route of xylitol production from lignocellulosic materials, via enzymatic hydrolysis which is followed by fermentation, offers a more sustainable or greener process than the chemical process route. Both the enzymatic hydrolysis and the fermentation processes are conducted at moderate process condition and thus require less energy and chemicals. However, the process proceeds slower than the chemical one. In order to improve process performance, the enzymatic hydrolysis and the fermentation processes can be integrated as Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF) configuration. This paper discusses the evaluation of SSF configuration on xylitol production from Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches (OPEFB). To integrate two processes which have different optimum temperature, the performance of each process at various temperature was first evaluated. Later, SSF was evaluated at various hydrolysis and fermentation time at each optimum temperature. SSF showed better process performance than the separated hydrolysis and fermentation processes. The best result was obtained from configuration with 72 hours of prior hydrolysis followed by simultaneous hydrolysis and fermentation, giving yield of 0.08 g-xylitol/g-OPEFB.