Excelzyme Characterization of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches (OPEFB) Degradation

Abstract

Utilization of polysaccharide biomass from agriculture by-product can be converted as bioenergy. Oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) is one of polysaccharide biomass. Degradation of polysaccharide can be proceed by enzymatically or chemically. Excelzyme is consortium of lignocellulolytic enzyme consist of cellulase, hemicellulase, and ligninase. In this research, the Excelzyme was used to degrade OPEFB with the different ratio of cellulase:hemicellulase and continued by ligninase addition. The result showed the optimum ratio of cellulase:hemicellulase was 1:1 at 6 hours incubation with the activity 0.176 U/mL and 3.05 U/mL, respectively. This ratio produced reduction sugar about 2074.25 μg/mL. The lignin and cellulose degradation were reduced about 6.84% and 4.25%, respectively. The degradation of OPEFB also supported by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) anlysis result.