Ethanol production from oil palm trunks treated with aqueous ammonia and cellulase

Oil palm trunks are a possible lignocellulosic source for ethanol production. Low enzymatic digestibility of this type of material (11.9% of the theoretical glucose yield) makes pretreatment necessary. An enzymatic digestibility of 95.4% with insoluble solids recovery of 49.8% was achieved after soaking shredded oil palm trunks in ammonia under optimum conditions (80°C, 1:12 solid-to-liquid ratio, 8h and 7% (w/w) ammonia solution). Treatment with 60 FPU of commercial cellulase (Accellerase 1000) per gram of glucan and fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae D₅A resulted in an ethanol concentration of 13.3g/L and an ethanol yield of 78.3% (based on the theoretical maximum) after 96h. These results indicate that oil palm trunks are a biomass feedstock that can be used for bioethanol production.