Hwee Li Teo, Roswanira Abdul Wahab, Wun Fui Mark-Lee, Mohd Hamdi Zainal-Abidin, Fahrul Huyop, Evi Susanti
Enzymatic treatment on lignocellulosic biomass has become a trend in preparing nanocellulose (NC), but the process must be optimized to guarantee high production yield and crystallinity. This study offers insights into an innovative protocol using cultivated fungal cellulase and xylanase to improve NC production from raw oil palm leaves (OPL) using five-factor-four-level Taguchi orthogonal design for optimizing parameters, namely substrate and enzyme loading, surfactant concentration, incubation temperature and time. Statistical results revealed the best condition for producing NC (66.06 % crystallinity, 43.59 % yield) required 10 % (w/v) substrate, 1 % (v/v) enzyme, 1.4 % (w/v) Tween-80, with 72-h incubation at 30 °C. Likewise, the highest sugar yield (47.07 %) was obtained using 2.5 % (w/v) substrate, 2.0 % (v/v) enzyme, 2.0 % (w/v) Tween-80, with 72-h incubation at 60 °C. The auxiliary enzymes used in this study, i.e., xylanase, produced higher crystallinity NC, showing widths between 8 and 12 nm and lengths >1 μm and sugars at 47.07 % yield. Thus, our findings proved that optimizing the single-step enzymatic hydrolysis of raw OPL could satisfactorily produce relatively crystalline NC and sugar yield for further transformation into bio-nanocomposites and biofuels. This study presented a simple, innovative protocol for NC synthesis showing characteristics comparable to the traditionally-prepared NC, which is vital for material's commercialization. © 2024
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Johor Bahru, 81310 UTM, Malaysia; Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Johor Bahru, 81310 UTM, Malaysia; Investigative and Forensic Sciences Research Group, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Johor Bahru, 81310 UTM, Malaysia; Research Center for Quantum Engineering Design, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universitas Airlangga, Jl. Mulyorejo, Surabaya, 60115, Indonesia; Department of Biosciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Johor Bahru, 81310 UTM, Malaysia; Biotechnology Program, Department of Applied Science, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia
