Peer Reviewed Biorefinery of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch by Nitric Acid Prehydrolysis Soda Cooking. Production of Furfural and Dissolving Pulp

Abstract

Abundant waste agricultural residues such as oil palm empty fruit bunch （EFB） can provide alternative sources of biomass for producing furfural. The aims of this study were to propose a method of preparing furfural and dissolving pulp （DP） from EFB using prehydrolysis with nitric acid, and to examine how the prehydrolysate, which contains xylan, can be used for furfural production. The furfural yield in the nitric acid prehydrolysate was increased to 6.2% of the EFB material weight by dehydration with an acid catalyst. Nitric acid prehydrolysis followed by soda cooking under atmospheric pressure was also applied to the preparation of DP. The obtained pulp was then bleached by using peroxymonosulfuric acid （P_sa）, chlorine dioxide （D₀, D₁）, and hydrogen peroxide （E_p） in the elementary chlorine-free P_sa-D₀-E_p-D₁ sequence. The pulp demonstrated a brightness of 90.4% ISO and a viscosity of 6.5 cP, which met the National Standard of Indonesia, although the xylan content was a little high and the α-cellulose content was 83.0%.