VOL. 12, NO. 21, NOVEMBER 2017 ISSN 1819-6608 ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences © 2006-2017 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved. www.arpnjournals.com 6225 BIOSUGAR PRODUCTION FROM OIL PALM MESOCARP FIBER (OPMF) USING VISCOZYME AbdulkarimAli Deba 1,2 , Nor Azimah Mohd Zain 2,1 and Madihah Salleh 3 1 Department of Science Education, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi, Bauchi, Nigeria 2 Department of Biosciences and Health Sciences, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia 3 Department of Biotechnology and Medical Engineering, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia E-Mail: azimah@fbb.utm.my ABSTRACT In this study, the performance of HNO3 and NaOH pretreatmentson oil palm mesocarp fiber (OPMF) was evaluated based on the residual carbohydrate. The best pretreatment condition was ascertained for reducing sugar and biosugar produced after saccharification with viscozyme. The pretreatment with 2 % (v/v) HNO3 improved cellulose concentration from 33.14 % to 60.0 %, while hemicellulose, lignin and ash were reduced by 25.59 %, 10.0 % and 25.9 % to 10.0 %, 5.33 % and 3.0 %, respectively. Enzymatic treatment using 1g solid loading, produce highest production in terms of arabinose 10.5 g/l, glucose (1.1 g/L) and xylose (0.42 g/L) was obtained under agitation. While for 10 grams solid loading, highest level of bio-sugar was obtained with arabinose (0.8 g/L) and glucose (1.6 g/L). FESEM-EDX and FTIR images before and after saccharification successfully showed the effect of enzymatic treatment on the mesocarp fiber. Keywords: OPMF, HNO3, lignocellulosic, enzymatic saccharification, biosugar. 1. INTRODUCTION The major cost in biofuel production such as ethanol, is the substrate, i.e. carbohydrate in the form of sugar; starch, cellulose, hemicellulose. Even though some sugars are easily available from agricultural by-products, straws from wheat and corn, husk from rice and bagasse [1,2].Extension of this process towards exploitation of lower-value substrates such as lignocellulose offers reduction in the production cost, make increase in the use of biofuels and in addition assuring food security. Lignocellulosic biomass is nature’s most abundant raw material can be obtained from hardwood, softwood, grasses, and agricultural residues. Biosugars, bioethanol and other kinds of biofuels are biobased products. It can be suitably established in regions with biomass availability [3]or else the market consequence will tell on the products. For example, Brazil is known for high cultivation sugar-cane [4, 5], may have the raw material of choice for bioethanol as bagasse, while USA is known for high cultivation of corn [6] may have abundance of corn straw as substrate relative to countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, known for high cultivation of oil palm. Since the cultivation of the crops is a gift of nature, therefore, diversification in the generation of raw materials has become necessary. A potential region for any biobased industrial products possesses surplus biomass and has no problems with food security. Understanding the fact that biobased products are region championed and Asia is the largest oil palm producer worldwide, necessitated for more exploration of its abundant oil palm biomass. In Malaysia, the favourable weather condition encourages all year cultivation of oil palm [7], as such huge biomass generation of ~ 6.93 million tonnes in dry basis of oil palm biomass[8], a potential bioresources for the bioconversion into value-added products such as biosugars, biofuels, bioplastic, cellulose and composite. Oil palm mesocarp fiber (OPMF) is a waste material of palm oil extraction and the expectation is that oil palm mesocarp fiber biomass will grow beyond what can be burnt by the limited boiler capacity of the palm oil mills [9]. At present, the biomass is used as a boiler fuel and mulching [10] medium, consequently, alternative biotechnological procedure for overcoming the huge biomass under mild condition has become environmental mandate. Oil palm mesocarp biomass as a lignocellulosic material is rich in, cellulose and hemicellulose therefore, can be a suitable substrate for biosugar production. Conversion of lignocellulosic can be conducted by means of enzymes or acids. Acid hydrolysis has the set back of high severity condition and production of inhibitors [11]. Combatively, enzymatic hydrolysis offers advantages of reduce energy and water utilization as they can work under unsevered conditions, offer yield improvement, in addition to the fact the enzymes are biodegradable [12]. Pretreatment is a must for these complex polysaccharides in order to expose the complex sugar to hydrolysis. Exposing the complex sugar will give access for enzymatic conversion of the complex sugar to simple sugar. Simple sugars, such as glucose and xylose are essential carbon sources for microbial fermentation to produce numerous biofuels and other value added product [13, 14, 15]. This work presents a commercial ‘viscozyme’ saccharification of OPMF fiber after pretreatment with HNO3 for biosugar production, as one of the biotechnological methods to reduce biomass volume generated in palm oil industries.