The latest news about environmental and green technologies –
renewables, energy savings, fuel cells Posted: Nov 21st, 2012
Green chemistry: The sweet conversion of a by-product (Nanowerk
News) Palm oil extraction annually produces approximately 13
million tons of waste plant matter. Some of this by-product,
known as empty fruit bunch (EFB), is currently incinerated to
produce heat and electricity to run palm oil mills, but it is
now on the path to a sweeter use. By adapting and optimizing an
established technique to convert sugarcane bagasse and corn
stover to the useful sugar xylose, a research team in Singapore,
led by Jin Chuan Wu from the A*STAR Institute of Chemical and
Engineering Sciences, has experimentally extracted high yields
of xylose from EFB ("Optimization of dilute acid-catalyzed
hydrolysis of oil palm empty fruit bunch for high yield
production of xylose"). After the extraction of oil from the oil
palm plant, the remaining plant matter (above) can be converted
into useful chemicals, including