title: Renewable sugars from oil palm frond juice as an alternative novel fermentation feedstock for value-added products.
abstract: In this paper, we report that pressed juice from oil palm frond (OPF) contained renewable sugars such as glucose, sucrose and fructose. By using a simple sugarcane press, 50% (wt/wt) of OPF juice was obtained from fresh OPF. The glucose content in the juice was 53.95±2.86g/l, which accounts for 70% of the total free sugars. We have examined the effect of various OPF juice concentrations on the production of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate), P(3HB) by Cupriavidus necator CCUG 52238(T). The cell dry mass in shake flask experiment reached 8.42g/l, with 32wt.% of P(3HB) at 30% (v/v) of OPF juice, comparable with using technical grade sugars. The biopolymer had a molecular mass, M(w) of 812kDa, with a low polydispersity index of 1.61. This result indicates that OPF juice can be used as an alternative renewable carbon source for P(3HB) production and has potential as a renewable carbon source.
authors.affiliation: Department of Process and Food Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Mior Ahmad Khushairi Mohd
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Zahari
authors.forename: Mohd Rafein
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Zakaria
authors.forename: Hidayah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ariffin
authors.forename: Mohd Noriznan
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Mokhtar
authors.forename: Jailani
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Salihon
authors.forename: Yoshihito
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shirai
authors.forename: Mohd Ali
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Hassan
mesh_terms: D002241:Carbohydrates / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005052:Eucalyptus / Q000737:chemistry*; D005285:Fermentation
chemical_list: D002241:Carbohydrates