1 Production of Industrial Sugars from Leucaena sp. R.M. Kamaldin 1 ; D.S. Awg-Adeni 1 and K.B. Bujang 2 1 Faculty of Resource Science and Technology Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, 94300 Kota Samarahan. Sarawak. 2 Faculty of Agrotechnology and Applied Sciences i-CATS University College, 93350 Kuching. Sarawak. Corresponding Author: kopli@icats.edu.my ABSTRACT Leucaena leucocephala or locally known in Malaysia as ‘petai belalang’ was studied as an alternative material to produce sugar from cellulose. Analyses of the dried samples contain about 25% lignin, 50% cellulose and 17% hemicellulose. This dried sample was pulverised, mixed with water (10% w/v) and pre-treated by autoclaving. The resulting liquid and solid fractions were enzymatically hydrolysed and analysed for sugars, with a yield of 30% and 17%, respectively. Further analyses revealed that the sugars consisted mostly of glucose at 30% from the liquid and 40% from the solid fractions, clearly exhibiting higher content of glucose in the solid fraction. Accordingly, 1kg of fresh petai belalang biomass (84% dry matter) produces 395g of raw sugar, almost 50% of the total fresh weight. In a circular economy, this exhibits the potential of using waste biomass from petai belalang that can be utilised to produce raw sugar. Other sugars were traces of arabinose at 2% and cellulobiose at 1%. Purification of this raw sugar by filtration on PAC actually removed about 80% of the sugar, with a remaining amount of 87g (22%) purified glucose, at 55g and 32g from the liquid and solid portions. Keywords: Leucaena leucocephala, glucose, enzymatic hydrolysis, powdered activated charcoal. INTRODUCTION Leucaena leucocephala is a small, fast-growing mimosoid tree native to Southern Mexico and northern Central America (Belize and Guatemala), but is now naturalized throughout the tropics. Common names include river tamarind, white lead tree, jumbay, and white popinac. (Wikipedia, 2023). The legume is promoted in several countries of Southeast Asia as a source of quality animal feed, since it provides an excellent source of high-protein cattle fodder due to the high protein content, easily digestible and fast growth. Petai Belalang is one of those plants which contain high content of lignocellulosic materials consisting of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Lignocellulosic material is a renewable and cheaper source of sugar for biofuel production. Normally, these materials need to undergo pre- treatment and enzymatic hydrolysis to open up the structure of lignocellulosic materials to ease the conversion of cellulose components into sugars, as reported elsewhere with sago fibre (Adeni et al., 2010). A similar approach was attempted to this plant in our effort to obtain non- table sugars.