Dita Natalia, Julistya Putri Winarta, Felycia Edi Soetaredjo
Oil palm is a common plant in Sumatera Island Indonesia for the production of cooking oil. In the production of cooking oil, oil palm empty bunch is one of solid waste and the availability is in great amount. Oil palm empty bunch are commonly used as boiler, fertilizer and mulch as well as road hardeners. Oil palm empty bunch contain high lignocellulose, which is good for the main ingredient of ruminant feedstock after removing lignin from it using delignification process. Chemical method and combination of physical and chemical delignification were performed to investigate the process condition which result on the greatest lignin reduction. Sodium hydroxide solution and hydrogen peroxide in acetic acid solution were used as delignification agents. Physical methods such as sonication-microwave heating and direct heating were conducted after chemical treatment on the oil palm empty bunch. Delignification using 9% sodium hydroxide solution or 50% hydrogen peroxide in 15% acetic acid solution produced the greatest lignin reduction from 31.59% become 25.84% and 25.61%, respectively. Combination physical treatment (sonication and microwave or direct heating) and chemical treatment greatly reduced the amount of lignin when it using 50% hydrogen peroxide in 15% acetic acid solution. The amounts of lignin reduced become 3.11% and 1.46% for sonication-microwave and direct heating, respectively. © 2006-2017 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN).
Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Widya Mandala Catholic University, Surabaya, Indonesia