Waste plant materials remaining from palm oil extraction processes can now be converted into a useful sugar
Wednesday, November 21, 2012 - 08:03
in Physics & Chemistry
Palm oil extraction annually produces approximately 13 million tons of waste plant matter. Some of this by-product, known as empty fruit bunch (EFB), is currently incinerated to produce heat and electricity to run palm oil mills, but it is now on the path to a sweeter use. By adapting and optimizing an established technique to convert sugarcane bagasse and corn stover to the useful sugar xylose, a research team in Singapore, led by Jin Chuan Wu from the A*STAR Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences, has experimentally extracted high yields of xylose from EFB.