New Rochelle, NY, November 19, 2015--The sugar obtained after enzymatic hydrolysis of empty fruit bunches (EFBs increased from 17% to 24% when supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) pretreatment of the EFBs was used, according to a new study. SC-CO2 pretreatment plus premixing of the EFBs with alkali further increased the glucose yield to almost 37%, as reported in the study published in Industrial Biotechnology.
Nurul Hazirah Che Hamzah, Masturah Markom, Osman Hassan, and Shuhaida Harun, National University of Malaysia, Selangor, provide visual evidence of the surface changes of pretreated EFBs, which appeared swollen and ruptured compared to the surface of the untreated EFBs. The researchers compared the effects of SC-CO2 pretreatment under different conditions. In the article "Investigation of the Effect of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Pretreatment on Sugar Yield Prior to Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Empty Fruit Bunches" they show that glucose yields increased with higher pretreatment temperature, pressure, and time.