The effects of acid and cellulose concentrations on the acid hydrolysis efficiency of waste cellulose from Palmyrah fruit husk

Abstract

Underutilized cellulose from the Palmyrah Fruit Husk (PFH) was the source of the environmental problems. However, converting waste cellulose into glucose through acid hydrolysis to produce value-added fuels and chemicals has the potential to be both cost-effective and environmentally sustainable. The objective of this research study is to extract the cellulose from waste PFH and convert it to glucose monosaccharide using acid hydrolysis processes. Cellulose was extracted from the PFH using 1.5 % (w/v) of NaOH and 0.5 % (w/v) of Na2S solutions and it was identified using the Schultz reagent test. In the presence of DNS reagent, the yield percentage of glucose from the acid hydrolysis processes was measured using the Jasco V −570 UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometer. The yield percentage of glucose increased when both the acid concentration and the extracted PFH cellulose solution were increased to a certain level. Furthermore, the optimal conditions were found to be 7.0 mol L −1 concentration of H2SO4 , 1.0 × 104 ppm of extracted cellulose solution and 4 hours of acid hydrolysis, yielding 59.36 % glucose monosaccharides. As a result, PFH can be used to produce glucose monosaccharide as a suitable feedstock.