Ball milling pretreatment and diluted acid hydrolysis of oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) fibres for the production of levulinic acid

Published Date
July 2015, Vol.52:85–92, doi:10.1016/j.jtice.2015.01.028

Author 

• Siew Xian Chin ^a,b
• Chin Hua Chia ^a,,,
• Sarani Zakaria ^a
• Zhen Fang ^b
• Sahrim Ahmad ^a

• aSchool of Applied Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
• bChinese Academy of Sciences, Biomass Group, Key Laboratory of Tropical Plant Resource and Sustainable Use, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, 88 Xuefulu, Kunming, Yunnan Province 650223, China

Received 29 August 2014. Revised 13 January 2015. Accepted 26 January 2015. Available online 14 February 2015. 

Highlights

• • Ball milling pretreatment enhanced yield of levulinic acid.
• • Ball milling increased accessible surface area of fibres for acid hydrolysis.
• • The highest 53.93% of LA was produced from oil palm EFB fibres.

Abstract

Oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) fibres were pretreated by ball milling (BM) at different durations of times. The pretreated fibres were characterised by wide angle X-ray diffraction analysis, particle-size distribution and scanning electron microscopy while the effectiveness of the pretreatment was correlated with the yield of acid hydrolysis to produce levulinic acid (LA). The obtained results showed that the highest yield of LA (10.4 g/L, 52.08%) can be achieved from the 12 h BM pretreated EFB fibres. Further BM pretreatment exceeding 12 h has no significant effect on the LA yield. Optimisation process was further carried out by applying central composite with rotatable design to verify the optimum parameter (H₂SO₄ concentration, temperature, and time) to produce LA. The optimal conditions for the LA production from the EFB fibres were 0.57 N H₂SO₄, 185.98 °C, and 195.77 min for producing 10.77 g/L (53.93 %) of LA.

Keywords

Green chemicals

Levulinic acid

Optimisation

---

Fig. 1.

 Table 1

Table 1.

 Table 2

Table 2.

Fig. 2.

 Table 3

Table 3.

Fig. 3.

 Table 4

Table 4.

 Table 5

Table 5.

Fig. 4.

 Table 6

Table 6.

• *
  Corresponding author. Tel.: +60 3 8921 5473; fax: +60 3 8921 3777.

Copyright © 2015 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

For further details log on website :
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876107015000413