INTEGRATED IONIC LIQUID PRETREATMENT WITH ENZYMATIC DELIGNIFICATION FOR SEPARATION OF CELLULOSE RICH FIBERS FROM OIL PALM BIOMASS

Oil Palm biomass (OPB), the most abundant lignocellulosic resources in the
Malaysia- represents an abundant carbon-neutral renewable resource for bioenergy
and biomaterials production. Among these biopolymers, celluloses have been used as
source of raw materials for biocomposite and biodegradable materials production due
to their fascinating structure and excellent properties. However, structural complexity
and heterogeneity of cell-wall microfibrils in OPB is the biggest challenge for the
clean separation of celluloses with minimal structural alteration. Among different
pretreatment methods, enzymatic delignification for degrading lignin has received
much attention as an environmentally safe process. However, this process for lignin
degradation has been found to be very slow due to the difficulties in enzyme
accessibility to the solid substrate.