Empty palm fruit bunches (EFBs) (5%, w/v) were pretreated with 1M NaOH at 121 C and stirred to homogeneity for 15 min [17]. The material was washed with flowing tap water to remove NaOH and then dried at 105 C for 24 h. Pretreated EFB solids were hydrolyzed by cellulase enzymes in a 0.05 M sodium citrate buffer (pH 4.8) at 42 C with agitation at 200 rpm. The amounts of sugars produced by enzymatic saccharification of EFB were measured by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) at different times. All presented data are the averages of three independent experiments.