The empty fruit bunch of the oil palm (EFB) is an agricultural
waste material produced after the extraction of palm oil from oil
palm fruit. Palm oil is an edible type of oil and is produced in large
amounts worldwide. Accordingly, great amounts of EFB are also
produced. In spite of this enormous amount, EFB has not been utilized
efficiently thus far. Only some of the EFB produced is used, by
burning it as fuel, while the majority of the EFB produced is composted
or dumped. Recently, several researchers investigated EFB
for its potential as a new feedstock for the production of biofuel and
biochemicals. Ahmazadeh et al. investigated the synthesis of phenolated
resin from phenol obtained from EFB by means of sulfuric acid hydrolysis (Ahmadzadeh et al., 2009). The hydrothermolysis
of EFB using an alkaline catalyst has also been studied by several
research groups
Thus far, studies of the hydro/solvothermolysis of biomass have
focused on the total yield or on the bulk properties of the BCO,
such as the molecular weight and the elemental composition. On
the other hand, quantitative analyses of the individual chemicals
in BCO are rare although it is essential for understanding reaction
mechanism in order to develop an efficient BCO upgrading
strategy. In this study, the effects of several parameters on the production
of the major chemical compounds from EFB by means of
hydro/solvothermolysis methods are investigated.