DefinePK

Abstract

As one of the countries with the largest palm oil production in the world, Indonesia has extensive oil palm plantations. The production of palm oil in Indonesia continues to grow from year to year. Huge palm oil processing will also produce an enormous amount of palm oil waste. If this solid waste is not handled properly, it can lead to a buildup of oil palm waste. One of the wastes of the palm oil industry is the oil palm empty fruit bunch. Delignification becomes one of the solutions in the handling of the oil palm empty fruit bunch. In the research, the influences of the delignification time, solid-liquid ratio, and the concentration of microorganisms on the lignin removal were studied. Lignin and cellulose content of the samples were analyzed using Van Soest method. The experimental results indicated that the lignin content of the biomass before bio-delignification was 32.83%, and after treated with Trichoderma viride the lignin content decreased to 13.76% (achieved at 1:30 solid-liquid ratio and 6 weeks fermentation time), while with Escherichia coli the lignin content drop to 12.48% (1:50 solid-liquid ratio and 6 weeks fermentation time). The combination between Trichoderma viride and Escherichia coli reduced the lignin content to 18.57% within 6 weeks of fermentation time. The FTIR analysis shows that the functional group of phenol and aromatic compounds were detected. This result indicates that the lignin component still presents in the bio-delignified oil palm empty fruit bunch.