Removal of Oil Palm Trunk Lignin in Ammonium Hydroxide Pretreatment

Alkaline pretreatment using ammonium hydroxide, NH4OH serves as one of a process to remove lignin from lignocellulosic biomass such as oil palm trunk fiber. In this study, the effect of NH4OH pretreatment on removal of oil palm trunk lignin was investigated. The oil palm trunk fiber was dissolved in NH4OH with different concentrations (6, 8 and 10 %), different duration (3, 5 and 7 h) and temperatures (60, 80 and 100 degrees C). The samples were analyzed by using UV-Vis to estimate the concentration of extracted lignin. The result indicates that the optimum conditions to gain maximum extracted lignin were 8% NH4OH, 100 degrees C and 5 h with concentration of 64 mgL(-1) while the lowest was at 6% NH4OH, 100 degrees C and 5 h with concentration of 62.5 mgL(-1).