Abstract—Palm fiber is a lignocellulosic material, which is
available in large quantity from oil palm industry. Due to its
cellulosic structure, it is considered as a highly potential
alternative material for ethanol production. Thus, the palm
fiber is utilized as a raw material in this study. The palm fiber is
obtained from local industry and mechanically ground to
reduce the size in the range of 0.417-1 mm. Then, it is pretreated
with 10% sodium hydroxide. Then, it is further utilized in the
enzymatic hydrolysis. The commercial cellulase enzyme
(Trichoderma reesei) is employed in this study. The nonionic
surfactant (Tween80) is applied to enhance the conversion of
cellulose to sugar. In the experiment, the effects of enzyme
loading, surfactant concentration, and hydrolysis time on sugar
yield are investigated at 50 C and pH 5. By employing the
response surface methodology, optimum sugar yield was
obtained at as high as 67.65 % from palm fiber at 107 h
hydrolysis time, 20 FPU/g substrate enzyme loading, and 7.39
g/L surfactant concentration.
Index Terms—Palm fiber, ethanol, enzymatic hydrolysis,
nonionic surfactant, response surface method.
The authors are with the Department of Chemical Engineering Prince of
Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla, 90112, Thailand (e-mail:
suratsawadee.k@psu.ac.th).
[PDF]
Cite: Jatuporn Parnthong and Suratsawadee Kungsanant, "Statistical Optimization for Application of Nonionic
Surfactants in Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Palm Fiber for
Ethanol Production," International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Applications vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 23-25, 2014.
